Today, Tyler Pritchard (NYU) and I assembled a group of time-domain-interested astrophysicists from around NYC (and a few who are part of the NYC community but more far-flung). In a two-hour meeting, all we did was introduce ourselves and our interests in time domain, multi-messenger, and Vera Rubin Observatory LSST, and then discuss what we might do, collectively, as a group. Time-domain expertise spanned an amazing range of scales, from asteroid search to exoplanet characterization to stellar rotation to classical novae to white-dwarf mergers with neutron stars, supernovae, light echoes, AGN variability, tidal-disruption events, and black-hole mergers. As we had predicted in advance, the group recognized a clear opportunity to create some kind of externally funded “Gotham” (the terminology we often use for NYC-area efforts these days) center for time-domain astrophysics.
Also, as we predicted, there was more confusion about whether we should be thinking about a real-time event broker for LSST. But we identified some themes in the group that might make for a good project: We have very good theorists working, who could help on physics-driven multi-messenger triggers. We have very good machine-learners working, who could help on data-driven triggers. And we have lots of non-supernovae (and weird-supernova) science cases among us. Could we make something that serves our collective science interests but is also extremely useful to global astrophysics? I think we could.
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