Speaker
Description
Long-period transients (LPTs) are a recently identified class of coherent radio transients with durations ranging from a few seconds to several minutes, and periodicities on timescales of minutes to hours. To date, only nine such sources have been reported, with few confirmed to reside in white dwarf–M-dwarf binary systems. The absence of detected optical companions or detection of X-rays in other cases leaves open alternative interpretations, including a possible magnetar origin. Identifying more LPTs is critical to constraining the population and evolutionary pathways of slowly rotating neutron stars and white dwarfs. In this work, we present results from a systematic search for long-period transients and other coherent radio bursts using data from the LOFAR Two-Metre Sky Survey (LoTSS). We report the discovery of an LPT with a 125.5-minute period, associated with a binary system containing an M-dwarf companion. We also present the initial results and highlight other transient candidates identified in the first 10% of the LoTSS Data Release 1 (DR1) fields, offering new insights into the dynamic radio sky. This project serves as a benchmark for transient search methodologies with LOFAR 2.0 and lays the groundwork for the upcoming EuroFlash project, which aims to enable real-time detection of radio transients.
