The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Systematic Transient Search of Single Observation Maps

Biermann, Emily; Li, Yaqiong; Naess, Sigurd; Choi, Steve K.; Clark, Susan E.; Devlin, Mark; Dunkley, Jo; Gallardo, P. A.; Guan, Yilun; Foster, Allen; Hasselfield, Matthew; Hervías-Caimapo, Carlos; Hilton, Matt; Hincks, Adam D.; Ho, Anna Y. Q.; Hood, John C.; Huffenberger, Kevin M.; Kosowsky, Arthur; Niemack, Michael D.; Orlowski-Scherer, John; Page, Lyman; Partridge, Bruce; Salatino, Maria; Sifón, Cristóbal; Staggs, Suzanne T.; Vargas, Cristian; Wollack, Edward J.

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/adce70

Title: The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Systematic Transient Search of Single Observation Maps

Journal Article · Mon Jun 02 00:00:00 UTC 2025 · The Astrophysical Journal

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adce70 · OSTI ID:2568697

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Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States); Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing (China)
Univ. of Oslo (Norway)
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA (United States)
Stanford Univ., CA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology
Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Kavli Inst. for Cosmological Physics (KICP)
Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada)
Flatiron Institute, New York, NY (United States)
Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago (Chili)
Univ. of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (South Africa); Univ. of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban (South Africa)
Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada); Vatican Observatory (Vatican City)
Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States); Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
Haverford College, PA (United States)
Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (Chili)
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago (Chile)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)

We conduct a systematic search for astrophysical transients using data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. The data were taken from 2017 to 2022 in three frequency bands spanning 77 to 277 GHz. In this paper, we present a pipeline for transient detection using single-observation maps where each pixel of a map contains one observation with an integration time of approximately 4 minutes. We detect 34 transient events at 27 unique locations. All but two of the transients are associated with Galactic stars and exhibit a wide range of properties. We also detect an event coincident with the classical nova YZ Ret and one event consistent with a flaring active galactic nucleus. We notably do not detect any reverse shock emission from gamma-ray bursts, a nondetection that may be in tension with current models.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF); Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); Simons Foundation

Grant/Contract Number:: 89233218CNA000001

OSTI ID:: 2568697

Report Number(s):: LA-UR--25-23110; 10.3847/1538-4357/adce70; 1538-4357

Journal Information:: The Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 986; ISSN 0004-637X; ISSN 1538-4357

Publisher:: IOP PublishingCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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