The collaboration

ASTERICS has multiple goals:

• Finding common solutions for challenges shared by different ESFRI instruments and other research infrastructures.
• Making multi-messenger and multi-wavelength measurements of events possible by developing protocols and software for different instruments to look at the same event simultaneously.
• Creating connections between research fields and make new partnerships to allow for the sharing and expanding of knowledge, experience and developments.

ASTERICS’ IMPACT IN DIFFERENT AREAS

The collaboration was started with the aim to build a broad research community around ESFRIs that includes different research fields and in which researchers can exchange their expertise and experience. The collaboration between the astronomy and astro(particle)physics fields did not yet exist in the form of a common project.

The four ESFRI telescopes that are currently being developed will all generate large amounts of data. This creates new challenges, for example in data transfer, data storage, data processing and data sharing. Though the ESFRI projects deliver excellent work concerning these challenges this is done largely in isolation. With ASTERICS a next level can be reached by stimulating collaboration between people working on different research infrastructures. Efficiency will be increased, as developments and solutions can be implemented at multiple research infrastructures, instead of re-inventing the same solution for each facility separately.

Another aspect of joining forces is to study the same event in space and time using telescopes measuring different wavelengths and instruments detecting different messengers simultaneously. To achieve this, a facility must be able to respond to triggers sent by others, the timing of measurements must be accurately matched and protocols need to be developed on how to deal with external triggers from other facilities. These developments are another part of ASTERICS. Finally, data availability for the science community is a topic of the collaboration. ASTERICS aims to make data from ESFRI telescopes compatible with the Virtual Observatory (VO) and to develop VO tools for ESFRI telescope data.

COLLABORATION OPPORTUNITIES

We are looking for new collaboration opportunities – also outside the fields of astronomy and astroparticle physics

Besides the work carried out by partners directly involved in ASTERICS, the collaboration aims to establish connections with external partners, in other research fields or in industry. The goal of these connections is to use developments made in the ASTER¬ICS community for other applications outside of astronomy and astro(particle) physics, or to use developments made outside of these research fields to advance developments in the ASTERICS community. Are you interested in collaboration or are you looking for more information? We invite you to contact us at astericsastron [dot] nl.

INTO THE FUTURE

ASTERICS is the first step in bringing different research communities together to solve common challenges. At the end of the project concrete advances surrounding the development of ESFRI facilities are expected to be made. In addition, important advances in collaboration between the involved research communities are already being made, for example by defining policies around scheduling and operations. This offers a base for future collaborations. This will be especially important as the focus in research shifts from looking at one wavelength or one messenger at a time towards multi-messenger and multi-wavelength science. The network built under the ASTERICS name can continue to serve this larger research community, and also be expanded to include other research fields dealing with similar challenges.

 

Partner organisations participating in the ASTERICS project: