GALEX Projects

Time Domain Wiki Page

Time Domain Ongoing Project List:

• Black Hole stellar capture flares (Gezari)
• SN shock break-out (Gezari)
• Sub-dwarf M star flares (Welsh)
• GALEX variability catalog (Welsh v2: 400 objects)
• Measuring the population of WD binaries (Bianchi)
• Visit database of MCAT files
  • Visit level variable alerts (plan)
  • Current implementation (www.galex.caltech.edu)

Open Ground:

• Short term variability (photon-file level)
  • Photon-level variable alerts
• Long term variability (coadds)
  • Generate reference image
  • compare each visit to ref image to find faint vars, transients
  • Long term (transients) variable alerts
• AGN stellar captures
• BH merger precursor (weeks-months periodicity)
• Zodiacal Light variability
• Planetary Transits on White Dwarfs
  • WDs with low mass companions
• CV populations
• QSO micro-lensing
• UV evolution of SNe, SNe Ia

Potential Synergy:

• PanSTARRS
  • Deep
    • BH flares
    • AGN variability
  • PAndromeda
    • Novae: Neill
    • Background AGN: Gezari
    • LBVs: Bianchi
• Palomar Transient Factory
• SkyMapper
• SN Surveys
• SWIFT
• Radio Transient Surveys: ATA, LOFAR, MWA?

Current Tools:

• VARPIX - flags intra-visit variations with 16s frames
• MCAT database - all source catalogs in sql database
• LCurve - generate light curves from photon-level files

GALEX summary (from latest calibration paper):