Extragalactic Transients in the Era of Wide-Field Radio Surveys. I. Detection Rates and Light Curve Characteristics

Understand

The impending era of wide-field radio surveys has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of astrophysical transients.

• Here we evaluate the prospects of a wide range of planned and hypothetical radio surveys using the properties and volumetric rates of known and hypothetical classes of extragalactic synchrotron radio transients (e.g., on- and off-axis gamma-ray bursts [GRB], supernovae, tidal disruption events [TDE], compact object mergers).
• Utilizing these sources and physically motivated considerations we assess the allowed phase-space of radio luminosity and peak timescale for extragalactic transients.
• We also include for the first time effects such as redshift evolution of the rates, K-corrections, and non-Euclidean luminosity distance, which affect the detection rates of the most sensitive surveys.