Studying AGN variability and Tidal Disruption Events with GOTO

GOTO is a newly-commissioned wide-area telescope with nodes in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Part of the project is to conduct all-sky surveys that are updated on roughly a weekly basis.

As such, this raises the prospect of studying transient events in galactic nuclei - such as AGN variability and Tidal Disruption Events - at higher time resolution then has been achieved before with large numbers of galaxies.

However, as a consequence, little is know about what can be learned from such high-cadence observations of galactic nuclei.

The aim of this project is to investigate the feasibility of using GOTO to gain insights whether AGN vary on short timescales and, if it does, what causes this variability.