Optical follow-up of gravitational-wave events in the Southern hemisphere: Development of the TOROS project software pipeline

The TOROS (Transient Optical Robotic Observatory of the South) project, developed by researchers at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, will observe and characterize transient optical light associated with the mergers of compact stellar objects such as pairs of neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole, while working in connection with ground-based gravitational wave detectors. During this research project, the team will fully develop, test and implement the software and pipelines required to successfully carry out the project.

This work makes a critical contribution to the multi-messenger research infrastructure by enabling new capabilities in sky coverage with an improved sensitivity in the southern hemisphere at a modest cost. The rapid localization and accurate characterization of electromagnetic emission associated with astrophysical mergers can make significant contributions to the understanding of the production of heavy elements through nuclear processes.

The associated gravitational wave information has the potential to yield estimates of the expansion rate of the Universe (the Hubble constant), which complement and are competitive with current techniques. Through a partnership with local school districts and a local amateur astronomical society, the research team will offer formal and informal educational opportunities in astronomy to college and high-school students (more than 92% of them Hispanic).

Educational materials will be developed incorporating the images obtained from TOROS and other observatories. The students involved will acquire skills in data analysis, programming, and robotics, skills which are transferrable beyond the discipline of observational astronomy and will be applicable to any STEM field. Students enrolled in these classes will actively participate in the scientific enterprise.

The partnership will also directly impact the general population of the Rio Grande Valley through public sessions at the Resaca de la Palma State Park observatory.

The TOROS system will be a fully robotic facility. The software to be developed will be critical to integrate all instances of the scientific operation — from responding to gravitational-wave and transient alerts, to scheduling observations, processing the raw data and carrying out the initial analyses. The TOROS telescope and dome are already installed at Cordon Macon in the Argentine section of the Atacama plateau.

A custom optical corrector and monolithic 10K×10K CCD camera, yielding a 1.9 square degree field of view sampled at 0.47”/pix, will be installed early in the project. This project advances the goals of the NSF Windows on the Universe Big Idea.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.