Workshop2020:rationale

Gaia and Gaia Alerts

ESA Gaia is continuing operations and is now well into its extended mission. DPAC have just released EDR3 with unprecedented astrometric and photometric data, and Gaia Photometric Science Alerts continues as a well established and leading transient survey. It discovers nearly 4000 objects a year from all over the sky, down to G=19, covering all possible classes of transients, from supernovae and CVs to rare phenomena like microlensing events or pair-instability supernovae.

Gaia Alerts Science


 The transient discovery machine within Gaia is constantly evolving allowing for more accurate transient identification. The longer baseline of Gaia data also allows for more robust detections of photometric anomalies. The alerting system is now also sensitive to slowly changing astrophysical events such as flares in distant quasars, young stellar objects, Be-type stars and microlensing events due to massive lenses. 


Follow-up

At the same time, we are seeing significant evolution in the area of photometric and spectroscopic follow-up. Robotisation and queue-scheduling of many telescopes enables more efficient coordination of long-term time-domain observations.

Workshop's promise


 The forthcoming Gaia Alerts Workshop, the 11th in the series, will be an opportunity to learn about the current state (and future plans for) Gaia and Gaia Alerts. We aim to discuss the detection, filtering, classification and publication of candidates. We will discover the most recent scientific highlights from Gaia Alerts, and we will explore the scientific potential of the programme.

Multimessenger time-domain


In particular, we would like to extend the invitation to all time-domain astronomical activities, spanning all electromagnetic spectrum from radio, through optical to X-rays, and other domains (gravitational waves, neutrino detectors). We hope this workshop will be an opportunity for improving the coordination within time-domain astronomy and increase the scientific output of surveys and follow-up observations in the multi-messenger era. 


Logistics

The workshop will be held on Zoom Platform and will last for about 3h every day at different times of the day so that we can accommodate attendees from different time-zones. During the registration process, you will be asked to select the most suitable time and day for your presentation. Please note the number of slots available for talks is limited. You will be informed if your talk was accepted by the WOC.