TUVOpipe: a pipeline to search for UV transients with Swift-UVOT
David Modiano, Rudy Wijnands, Aastha Parikh, Jari van Opijnen, Sill, Verberne, Marieke van Etten

TL;DR
TUVOpipe is a real-time UV transient detection pipeline using Swift-UVOT data, enabling systematic searches for new and known UV transients, with potential for follow-up observations and discovery of previously unreported events.
Contribution
We developed TUVOpipe, a novel pipeline for real-time and archival UV transient detection in Swift-UVOT data, improving systematic search capabilities in the UV transient sky.
Findings
Processed 75,183 UVOT images since 2020, detecting ~100 transient candidates daily.
Identified that most real transients are known variable stars, AGNs, or white dwarfs.
Discovered some previously unreported transients and outbursts, including from cataclysmic variables.
Abstract
Despite the prevalence of transient-searching facilities operating across most wavelengths, the ultraviolet (UV) transient sky remains to be systematically studied. We have recently initiated the Transient Ultraviolet Objects (TUVO) project, with which we search for serendipitous UV transients in data from currently available UV instruments, with a focus on the UV/Optical (UVOT) telescope aboard the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (an overview of the TUVO project is described in a companion paper). Here we describe TUVOpipe, the pipeline we constructed in order to find such transients in the UVOT data, using difference image analysis. The pipeline is run daily on all new public UVOT data (which are available 6-8 hours after the observations are performed), so we discover transients in near real-time. This allows for follow-up observations to be performed. From October 1, 2020, to the…
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