UNC-CH Physics and Astronomy Thesis Proposal Presentation

Nathan Galliher

“The Argus Array & ArgusSpec: Deep, High-Cadence, All-Sky Transient Followup”

Traditional telescopes, which have limited fields of view and survey the sky over long timescales, are successful at finding large numbers of variable stars. However, these telescopes often struggle with detecting short-lived transient events, such as flares and fast flashes. These challenges can be overcome using telescopes with extreme fields of view, allowing the entire sky to be monitored at high cadence. One such telescope, the Evryscope, has proven successful at detecting rapid transients, as well as obtaining observations of traditional stellar variability. In work completed to-date, I used the Evryscope to perform a young star variability survey, finding hundreds of new variable systems, including new discoveries of pre-main sequence eclipsing binaries. Developments in new mass-produced, wide-field, small-aperture telescopes allow the Evryscope concept to be scaled up to a new class of telescope: The Argus Array. The Argus Array will be an all-sky, arcsecond-resolution, 1000-telescope array which builds a simultaneously high-cadence and deep survey by observing every part of the sky all night. As part of my dissertation research, I work on the development of the Argus Array and its prototypes: milliArgus and the Argus Pathfinder. In addition to this work, I describe the development of ArgusSpec, an autonomous, rapid-slew spectrograph which will provide spectroscopic followup of transient detections from the Evryscope, Argus Pathfinder, and the full Argus Array.

This defense will be held remotely via Zoom: https://unc.zoom.us/j/96225142852