Alert Chain and Observation Planning for Ground Wide Angle Camera Network

TL;DR

This paper describes the design and implementation of an automated alert processing and observation scheduling system for the GWAC-N, a robotic telescope network aimed at detecting optical counterparts of gamma-ray bursts.

Contribution

It introduces an integrated alert workflow and a novel automated scheduling system tailored for multi-telescope, rapid follow-up observations in GWAC-N.

Findings

Successful implementation of automated alert processing workflow.

Effective scheduling and dispatching of telescopes for GRB follow-up.

Enhanced capability for rapid multi-band observations of gamma-ray bursts.

Abstract

The Ground Wide Angle Camera Network (GWAC-N) is a robotic telescope network. It consists of ten wide-field core telescopes (GWAC-A) and two 60cm narrow-field rapid follow-up telescopes (GWAC-F60A/B). The primary scientific goal of GWAC-N is to detect optical counterparts of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) discovered by the SVOM satellite. This is achieved through synchronized monitoring with the GWAC-A array. Upon receiving a GRB trigger alert, the network conducts rapid, multi-band follow-up observations using the GWAC-F60A/B telescopes. The two-stage observation process involves many telescopes, making manual control impractical. Automated operations are therefore essential. They are realized through an integrated alert processing chain and an automated observation scheduling and dispatching mechanism. To enable this, we employ the SVOM Follow-up Observation Coordinating Service (FOCS) and GWAC-N's Automatic Observation Management (AOM) system. This paper presents the integrated alert processing workflow. It also describes the formulation of observation strategies, and the scheduling and execution of observations enabled by FOCS and AOM.