A radical new era for transient astrophysics with Swift
Abstract
We have entered a new era of multi-messenger astronomy, with the recent detections of both EM counterparts of Gravitational Wave sources (GW170817), and the IceCube detection of possible neutrino from the blazar TXS 0506+056. In both these discoveries, NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory provided unique measurements, thanks to its rapid response capabilities, its fast slewing, and its agile operations team. Swift has unique advantages over other telescopes, its multi-wavelength capabilities, its location in space means it can be on target quicker than ground based telescopes which may have to wait for the Sun to set, and in addition Swift is the only X-ray and UV telescope capable of tiling large areas of the sky needed to search for transients with poor localizations, a capability currently only in the proposal stage for other space based telescopes. We discuss how Swift's response to discoveries by other telescopes, including MAXI, IceCube, ALIGO/AVirgo, ZTF, ASAS-SN and IPN has evolved to meet an ever increasing demand for rapid observations, over larger and more complex regions of the sky. We will present recent science results from Swift highlighting these capabilities. Finally we present what’s next for Swift: new developments that will allow Swift to respond quicker, observe more targets, and observe larger and more complex error regions, turning Swift into a discovery tool for multi-messenger EM counterparts, and putting Swift at the forefront of transient astrophysics.
- Publication:
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AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division
- Pub Date:
- March 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019HEAD...1710984K