Millimeter transient point sources in the SPTpol 100 square degree survey

• Published in: The Astrophysical Journal
• Main Authors: Whitehorn, N., Natoli, T., Ade, P. A. R., Austermann, J. E., Beall, J. A., Bender, A. N., Benson, B. A., Bleem, L. E., Carlstrom, J. E., Chang, C. L., Chiang, H. C., Cho, H. -M., Citron, R., Crawford, T. M., Crites, A. T., Haan, T. de, Dobbs, M. A., Everett, W., Gallicchio, J., George, E. M., Gilbert, A., Halverson, N. W., Harrington, N., Henning, J. W., Hilton, G. C., Holder, G. P., Holzapfel, W. L., Hoover, S., Hou, Z., Hrubes, J. D., Huang, N., Hubmayr, J., Irwin, K. D., Keisler, R., Knox, L., Lee, A. T., Leitch, E. M., Li, D., McMahon, J. J., Meyer, S. S., Mocanu, L., Nibarger, J. P., Novosad, V., Padin, S., Pryke, C., Reichardt, C. L., Ruhl, J. E., Saliwanchik, B. R., Sayre, J. T., Schaffer, K. K., Smecher, G., Stark, A. A., Story, K. T., Tucker, C., Vanderlinde, K., Vieira, J. D., Wang, G., Yefremenko, V.
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: 79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1260388; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1260388; https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/830/2/143

The millimeter transient sky is largely unexplored, with measurements limited to follow-up of objects detected at other wavelengths. High-angular-resolution telescopes, designed for measurement of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), offer the possibility to discover new, unknown transient sources in this band—particularly the afterglows of unobserved gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Here, we use the 10 m millimeter-wave South Pole Telescope, designed for the primary purpose of observing the CMB at arcminute and larger angular scales, to conduct a search for such objects. During the 2012–2013 season, the telescope was used to continuously observe a 100 deg 2 patch of sky centered at R.A. 23 h 30 m and decl. –55° using the polarization-sensitive SPTpol camera in two bands centered at 95 and 150 GHz. These 6000 hr of observations provided continuous monitoring for day- to month-scale millimeter-wave transient sources at the 10 mJy level. As a result, one candidate object was observed with properties broadly consistent with a GRB afterglow, but at a statistical significance too low (p = 0.01) to confirm detection.