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Followup Observations in the Swift Era. S. R. Kulkarni California Institute of Technology. New at Palomar. Palomar 60-inch now automated Goal: Produce uniform set of light curves Fox (Project Scientist), Harrison & Kulkarni (PI)
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Followup Observations in the Swift Era S. R. Kulkarni California Institute of Technology
New at Palomar • Palomar 60-inch now automated Goal: Produce uniform set of light curves Fox (Project Scientist), Harrison & Kulkarni (PI) CCD + filter wheel (focus on I, z bands) 20% Caltech Community (only Q scheduled) 10% IPAC (Q scheduled; Data Pipeline and Archive) 70% GRB Team (all TOO) • Palomar 24-inch robotic telescope Brown (PI); First light April 2004 20% SRK CCD + filter wheel
Radio Followup • Will there be sufficient resources? Need radio light curves for many bursts (ordinary and otherwise) But, few radio facilities (cf optical facilities) Our large VLA/BeppoSAX Large program: 1hr/day >> Suggest aggressive WSRT & ATCA program • Radio monitoring would be useful (especially for supernovae and other transients) refurbish old facilities? e.g. 40-m OVRO telescope linkup with JPL DSN upgrade project?
First few months: Shared Risk • Maintain transparency • View community at large as volunteers to help out the project • Astronomers understand error radii, stochastic and systematic errors • Rough fluences and fluxes should be a part and parcel of every event
Routine Operations • An impressive number of followup facilities have been organized in response to Swift. - Robotic Telescopes - Large Telescope Key projects - Existing Networks are ready to go • Host galaxy studies will lag other studies. This is not a major issue.
Followup Architecture • Plan A: Swift project spearheads followup. Organization of such a large followup program is logistically hard. • Plan B: GCN as the central clearing house. Assumes organic growth of community based efforts. Swift sold as community mission. >> Suggest a workshop in Spring.
Swift Response: My view • Have a default X-ray/UVOT observing sequence Helps the community plan followup Uniform data sets will be one of the legacies of Swift • Exceptions to be made for exceptional bursts Announce these via GCN.
Advice to Team • Please publish Swift-specific papers rapidly Obviously morale booster for team Energizes community to respond with followup papers • Publish Swift catalog every six months This will drive synthesis studies