A Data Science Platform to Enable Time-domain Astronomy

August 2023 • 2023ApJS..267...31C

Authors • Coughlin, Michael W. • Bloom, Joshua S. • Nir, Guy • Antier, Sarah • du Laz, Theophile Jegou • van der Walt, Stéfan • Crellin-Quick, Arien • Culino, Thomas • Duev, Dmitry A. • Goldstein, Daniel A. • Healy, Brian F. • Karambelkar, Viraj • Lilleboe, Jada • Shin, Kyung Min • Singer, Leo P. • Ahumada, Tomás • Anand, Shreya • Bellm, Eric C. • Dekany, Richard • Graham, Matthew J. • Kasliwal, Mansi M. • Kostadinova, Ivona • Kiendrebeogo, R. Weizmann • Kulkarni, Shrinivas R. • Jenkins, Sydney • LeBaron, Natalie • Mahabal, Ashish A. • Neill, James D. • Parazin, B. • Peloton, Julien • Perley, Daniel A. • Riddle, Reed • Rusholme, Ben • van Santen, Jakob • Sollerman, Jesper • Stein, Robert • Turpin, D. • Wold, Avery • Amat, Carla • Bonnefon, Adrien • Bonnefoy, Adrien • Flament, Manon • Kerkow, Frank • Kishore, Sulekha • Jani, Shloke • Mahanty, Stephen K. • Liu, Céline • Llinares, Laura • Makarison, Jolyane • Olliéric, Alix • Perez, Inès • Pont, Lydie • Sharma, Vyom

Abstract • SkyPortal is an open-source software package designed to discover interesting transients efficiently, manage follow-up, perform characterization, and visualize the results. By enabling fast access to archival and catalog data, crossmatching heterogeneous data streams, and the triggering and monitoring of on-demand observations for further characterization, a SkyPortal-based platform has been operating at scale for >2 yr for the Zwicky Transient Facility Phase II community, with hundreds of users, containing tens of millions of time-domain sources, interacting with dozens of telescopes, and enabling community reporting. While SkyPortal emphasizes rich user experiences across common front-end workflows, recognizing that scientific inquiry is increasingly performed programmatically, SkyPortal also surfaces an extensive and well-documented application programming interface system. From back-end and front-end software to data science analysis tools and visualization frameworks, the SkyPortal design emphasizes the reuse and leveraging of best-in-class approaches, with a strong extensibility ethos. For instance, SkyPortal now leverages ChatGPT large language models to generate and surface source-level human-readable summaries automatically. With the imminent restart of the next generation of gravitational-wave detectors, SkyPortal now also includes dedicated multimessenger features addressing the requirements of rapid multimessenger follow-up: multitelescope management, team/group organizing interfaces, and crossmatching of multimessenger data streams with time-domain optical surveys, with interfaces sufficiently intuitive for newcomers to the field. This paper focuses on the detailed implementations, capabilities, and early science results that establish SkyPortal as a community software package ready to take on the data science challenges and opportunities presented by this next chapter in the multimessenger era.

Links

• SIMBAD http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbo.pl?bibcode=2023ApJS..267...31C
• PDF https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4365/acdee1/pdf
• NED https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/uri/NED::InRefcode/2023ApJS..267...31C
• PREPRINT http://arxiv.org/abs/2305.00108
• ELECTR https://doi.org/10.3847%2F1538-4365%2Facdee1