Towards a BRICS Optical Transient Network (BRICS-OTN)

David A. H. Buckley; Vanessa A. McBride; Ulisses Barres de Almeida; Boris Shustov; Alexei Pozanenko; Alexander Lutovinov; Amitesh Omar; Jayant Murthy; Margarita Safonova; Liu Jifeng; Roberto Soria

arXiv · 2011.02892

Towards a BRICS Optical Transient Network (BRICS-OTN)

David A. H. Buckley·Vanessa A. McBride·Ulisses Barres de Almeida·Boris Shustov·Alexei Pozanenko·Alexander Lutovinov·Amitesh Omar·Jayant Murthy·Margarita Safonova·Liu Jifeng·Roberto Soria

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Abstract

This paper is based on a proposal submitted for a BRICS astronomy flagship program, which was presented at the 2019 meeting of the BRICS Astronomy Working Group, held in Rio de Janeiro from 29 September to 2 October 2019. The future prospects for the detection and study of transient phenomena in the Universe heralds a new era in time domain astronomy. The case is presented for a dedicated BRICS-wide flagship program to develop a network of ground-based optical telescopes for an all-sky survey to detect short lived optical transients and to allow follow-up of multi-wavelength and multi-messenger transient objects. This will leverage existing and planned new facilities within the BRICS countries and will also draw on the opportunities presented by other multi-wavelength space- and ground-based facilities that exist within the BRICS group. The proposed optical network would initially perform followup observations on new transients using existing telescopes. This would later expand to include a new global network of $\sim$70 wide-field 1-m telescopes which will cover the entire sky, simultaneously, with a cadence of less than a few hours. This realization would represent a ground-breaking and unique global capability, presenting many scientific opportunities and associated spin-off benefits to all BRICS countries.

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David A. H. Buckley, Vanessa A. McBride, Ulisses Barres de Almeida, Boris Shustov, Alexei Pozanenko, Alexander Lutovinov, Amitesh Omar, Jayant Murthy, Margarita Safonova, Liu Jifeng, Roberto Soria. 2020-11-05. Towards a BRICS Optical Transient Network (BRICS-OTN). https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.02892

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