Astro-COLIBRI: An Advanced Platform for Real-Time Multi-Messenger Astrophysics

TL;DR

Astro-COLIBRI is a comprehensive, real-time platform designed to enhance multi-messenger astrophysics by integrating alert streams, filtering data, and providing rapid, user-friendly summaries of transient cosmic phenomena across multiple observatories.

Contribution

The paper introduces Astro-COLIBRI, a novel platform that combines real-time data processing, multi-messenger context, and user-friendly interfaces to improve transient astrophysics observations.

Findings

Real-time evaluation of astronomical alerts from multiple streams.

Enhanced multi-wavelength and multi-messenger data integration.

Applications in high-energy gamma-ray and neutrino counterpart searches.

Abstract

Observations of transient phenomena like Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), stellar flares and explosions (novae and supernovae), combined with the detection of novel cosmic messengers like high-energy neutrinos and gravitational waves has revolutionized astrophysics over the last years. The discovery potential of both ulti-messenger and multi-wavelength follow-up observations as well as serendipitous observations could be maximized with a novel tool which allows for quickly acquiring an overview over relevant information associated with each new detection. Here we present Astro-COLIBRI, a novel and comprehensive platform for this challenge. Astro-COLIBRI's architecture comprises a public RESTful API, real-time databases, a cloud-based alert system and a website as well as apps for iOS and Android as clients for users. Astro-COLIBRI evaluates incoming messages of astronomical observations from all available alert streams in real time, filters them by user specified criteria and puts them into their MWL and MM context. The clients provide a graphical representation with an easy to grasp summary of the relevant data to allow for the fast identification of interesting phenomena, provides an assessment of observing conditions at a large selection of observatories around the world, and much more. Here the key features of Astro-COLIBRI are presented. We outline the architecture, summarize the used data resources, and provide examples for applications and use cases. Focussing on the high-energy domain, we'll discuss the use of the platform in searches for high-energy gamma-ray counterparts to high-energy neutrinos, gamma-ray bursts and gravitational waves.