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Astronomy Tea Talk

Monday, May 9, 2022
4:00pm to 5:00pm
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Tarraneh Eftekhari, Northwestern University,

The next generation of CMB surveys are poised to open a new window for transient discovery in the millimeter band. These surveys will cover a large fraction of the sky to unprecedented sensitivity and with high cadence, complementing existing wide-field radio and optical surveys. In this talk, I will discuss the present day landscape of millimeter transients and what we have learned from targeted follow-up observations. Using theoretical and empirical light curves for a wide range of extragalactic transients, in conjunction with known and estimated volumetric event rates, I will present our work characterizing the discovery phase space for millimeter transients in existing and near-term CMB surveys (ACT, SPT-3G, Simons Observatory, CMB-S4, CMB-HD). The detection of transient sources in CMB surveys will facilitate a wide range of scientific discovery, including detailed studies of the jet launching mechanism in gamma-ray bursts, the first unbiased sample of millimeter emission from fast blue optical transients, and constraints on the fraction of tidal disruption events that produce relativistic jets. 

For more information, please contact Liam Connor by email at [email protected] or visit https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-zYBv_IqFp2f9huYQA1VSw.