Galaxies (Jan 2019)

AMON Multimessenger Alerts: Past and Future

  • Hugo Alberto Ayala Solares

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/galaxies7010019
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
p. 19

Abstract

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The Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network (AMON) was founded to tie the world’s high-energy and multimessenger observatories into a single network, with the purpose to enable the discovering of multimessenger sources, to exploit these sources for purposes of astrophysics, fundamental physics, and cosmology, and to explore archival datasets for evidence of multimessenger source populations. Contributions of AMON to date include the GCN prompt alerts for likely-cosmic neutrinos, multiple follow-up campaigns for likely-cosmic neutrinos including the IceCube-170922A event, and several archival searches for transient and flaring γ + ν and ν + CR multimessenger sources. Given the new dawn of multimessenger astronomy recently realized with the detection of the neutron binary star merger and the possible γ + ν coincidence detection from the blazar TXS0506+056, in 2019, we are planning to commission several multimessenger alert streams, including GW + γ and high-energy γ + ν coincidence alerts. We will briefly summarize the current status of AMON and review our monitoring plans for high-energy and multimessenger AMON alerts during what promises to be a very exciting year for multimessenger astrophysics.

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