Managing the Growing Complexity of Multi-Messenger Transient Events with Astro-COLIBRI

TL;DR

Astro-COLIBRI is a comprehensive platform that integrates multi-messenger and multi-wavelength data, providing real-time alerts, filtering, and visualization tools to enhance the study of transient astrophysical events.

Contribution

The paper introduces Astro-COLIBRI, a new platform that consolidates alerts, databases, and user interfaces for efficient management of complex multi-messenger transient observations.

Findings

Real-time evaluation of astronomical alerts.

Effective filtering based on user criteria.

Graphical summaries for quick event assessment.

Abstract

Observations of transient phenomena, such as GRBs, FRBs, novae/supernovae explosions, coupled with the detection of cosmic messengers like high-energy neutrinos and gravitational waves, have transformed astrophysics. Maximizing the discovery potential necessitates tools for swiftly acquiring an overview of the most relevant information for each new detection. Introducing Astro-COLIBRI, a comprehensive platform designed to meet this challenge. Astro-COLIBRI features a public API, real-time databases and alert systems, a discussion forum, and a website and iOS/Android apps as user clients. In real time, it evaluates incoming astronomical observation messages from all available alert streams, filters them based on user-defined criteria, and contextualizes them in the multi-wavelength (MWL) and multi-messenger (MM) context. User clients offer a graphical representation, providing a succinct summary for quick identification of interesting phenomena and assessing observing conditions globally.