Stars: Flare

iPTF14yb: The First Discovery of a Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow Independent of a High-energy Trigger

We report here the discovery by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) of iPTF14yb, a luminous (M$_r$≈ -27.8 mag), cosmological (redshift 1.9733), rapidly fading optical transient. We demonstrate, based on probabilistic arguments and a …

Discovery of a Cosmological, Relativistic Outburst via its Rapidly Fading Optical Emission

We report the discovery by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) of the transient source PTF11agg, which is distinguished by three primary characteristics: (1) bright (R $_peak$ = 18.3 mag), rapidly fading (ΔR = 4 mag in Δt = 2 days) optical transient …

GRB 070610: A Curious Galactic Transient

GRB 070610 is a typical high-energy event with a duration of 5 s. Yet within the burst localization we detect a highly unusual X-ray and optical transient, Swift J195509.6+261406. We see high- amplitude X-ray and optical variability on very short …

Discovery of a Transient U-Band Dropout in a Lyman Break Survey: A Tidally Disrupted Star at z=3.3?

We report the discovery of a transient source in the central regions of galaxy cluster A267. The object, which we call ``PALS-1,`` was found in a survey aimed at identifying highly magnified Lyman break galaxies in the fields of intervening rich …