Lee et al. conducted a search for radio transients using 200 hours of archival data from the ASKAP EMU, covering 750 square degrees of sky at the shortest possible imaging time step of 10-seconds. Previous ASKAP radio star searches have primarily used VAST and RACS data, which have observation durations of only 12 and 15 minutes, respectively. Such short observation windows may have missed transients entirely or failed to capture their full duration, limiting the study of their variability. Although no Long Period Transients (LPTs) were detected, they identified flares from six stars. The star Gaia DR3 5853594572486546176 was found after cross-matching the transient’s coordinates with SIMBAD. After accounting for proper motion, it is 1.1 arcsec away from the the coordinates in the candidate list. There have been no previous published radio detections of this star. The figure above shows the light curve and dynamic spectrum of the star, averaged over 5-minute time intervals. The 10-second peak flux density is 6.5 mJy and the circular polarisation fraction is 82%. The transient is extremely broad and lasted for over 4 hours. The team’s findings demonstrate the feasibility of detecting radio transients using 10-second imaging with ASKAP and provide insights into improving detection pipelines and observation strategies for LPTs.
