Deeper, Wider, Faster (DWF)

The Deeper, Wider, Faster programme is a novel survey which searches for fast transients, on timescales of minutes to days, in real-time. This search is conducted by coordinating multiple facilities to observe the same fields in the sky simultaneously in multiwavelength and multimessenger regimes (including radio, mm/sub-mm, optical, UV, X-ray, gamma-ray, and ultra-high energy particles). These data enables deep, wide-field, fast cadence observations of rare and exotic transient bursts before they fade away. Rapid real-time data processing is performed during observational runs, with data transferred from the telescope to by-eye transient candidate vetting occurring in ~10 minutes. Additional facilities are available for quick response triggering, to acquire further deep imaging and spectroscopic data. To date, DWF has worked with over 100 facilities all over the world, and in space.

Kilonova and Transients Programme (KNTraP)

The KiloNova and Transients Programme is an optical search specifically designed for the discovery of kilonovae, without the reliance on gravitational wave or gamma-ray burst triggers. This search is non-disruptive, multi-filter, nightly cadence, and probes a large cosmological volume per night. Advantages of an untriggered search includes not being not limited by gravitational wave detector horizon, localisation areas, or when the gravitational wave detectors are online. We perform rapid data processing, and vet candidates next day to be able to trigger follow-up observations before the kilonova/ fast transient fades away. A single KNTraP run is designed to take ~10 observational nights, it is a highly efficient search, and we estimate 3 KNTraP runs are required on average, to discover one kilonova.

Publications

An extremely fast fading population II dwarf nova candidate: caught spectroscopically on the rise

Natasha Van Bemmel, Jielai Zhang, Jeff Cooke, Anais Möller, Igor Andreoni, Katie Auchettl, David Buckley, Jonathan Carney, Dougal Dobie, James Freeburn, Bruce Gendre, Vanshika Kansal, Itumeleng Monageng, Arne Rau, Nikita Rawat, Mark Suhr, Edward N. Taylor

An optically led search for kilonovae to z~0.3 with the Kilonova and Transients Programme (KNTraP)

Natasha Van Bemmel & Jielai Zhang, Jeff Cooke, Armin Rest, Anais Möller, Igor Andreoni, Katie Auchettl, Dougal Dobie, James Freeburn, Bruce Gendre, Simon Goode, David O Jones, Charles D Kilpatrick, Amy Lien, Arne Rau, Lee Spitler, Mark Suhr, Fransisco Valdes

A Machine Learning empowered search for Sub-Minute Optical Transient Events with the Deeper, Wider, Faster programme

Simon Goode, Sara Webb, Jeff Cooke, Jielai Zhang, James Freeburn, Amy Lien, Mohsen Shamohammadi, Alexandra Rosenthal, Laura Driessen, Christopher Fluke, Ashish Mahabal, Anais Möller, Dougal Dobie, Adam Batten, and Natasha Van Bemmel

A follow-up strategy enabling discovery of electromagnetic counterparts to highly magnified gravitationally lensed gravitational waves

Dan Ryczanowski, Jeff Cooke, James Freeburn, Benjamin Gompertz, Christopher Paul Haines, Matt Nicholl, Graham Smith, Natasha Van Bemmel, and Jielai Zhang

GRB220831A: a hostless, intermediate gamma-ray burst with an unusual optical afterglow

James Freeburn, Brendan O'Connor, Jeff Cooke, Dougal Dobie, Anais Möller, Nicolas Tejos, Jielai Zhang, Paz Beniamini, Katie Auchettl, James DeLaunay, Simone Dichiara, Wen-fai Fong, Simon Goode, Alexa Gordon, Charles D Kilpatrick, Amy Lien, Cassidy Mihalenko, Geoffrey Ryan, Karelle Siellez, Mark Suhr, Eleonora Troja, Natasha Van Bemmel, Sara Webb

A fast-cadenced search for gamma-ray burst orphan afterglows with the Deeper, Wider, Faster programme

James Freeburn, Jeff Cooke, Anais Möller, Dougal Dobie, Jielai Zhang, Om Sharan Salafia, Karelle Siellez, Katie Auchettl, Simon Goode, Timothy M C Abbott, Igor Andreoni, Rebecca Allen, Natasha Van Bemmel, Sara Webb