Program: GS-2024A-FT-203

Title:Gemini Follow up of Infrared Transients Discovered by NEWFIRM
PI:Charles Kilpatrick
Co-I(s): Armin Rest, Gautham Narayan, Luca Izzo, David Coulter, Kyle Davis, Ryan Foley, Karthik Yadavalli, Matt Wiesner, Jenevieve Pearson, Samaporn Tinyanont, Jacob Jencson, Luidhy Santana, Phelipe Darc, Bernardo Fraga, Prasiddha Arunachalam, Clecio Bom, Andre Santos, Dave Sand, Ashley Villar

Abstract

The NEWFIRM Infrared Survey for Transients will conduct a survey in 2024A targeting galaxies at <100 Mpc using the wide-field infrared camera NEWFIRM on the Blanco 4m and designed to find infrared transients with J-band brightnesses down to 20 mag. This survey is expected to independently discover and follow up ~10 transients throughout 2024A, providing a unique source of dust-obscured, intrinsically red, and new types of infrared transients. However, due to the limited windows when NEWFIRM is on Blanco - 8 day windows during bright time in Feb, May, and June - follow up imaging and spectroscopy in the infrared will be essential to fully characterize and understand the physics powering these extragalactic transients. Here we propose for Gemini/GNIRS and Flamingos2 time to obtain follow up imaging and spectroscopy for up to 2 NEWFIRM-discovered transients from March-May, 2024.