X-ray transients are among the most enigmatic objects in the cosmic sky. In recent years, the unpredictability and underlying nature of their transient behavior has prompted many studies. While significant progress has been made in this field, a more complete understanding of such events is often hampered by the delay in the rapid follow-up of any transient event. An efficient way to mitigate this constraint would be to devise a way for near real-time detection of such transient phenomena. The Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics/Wide Field Imager (Athena/WFI), with its 40 ′ × 40 ′ field of view and large effective area, will detect a large number of x-ray variable or transient objects daily. We discuss an algorithm for the rapid onboard or ground-based detection of x-ray transients with WFI. We present a feasibility test of the algorithm using simulated Athena WFI data and show that a fairly simple algorithm can effectively detect transient and variable sources in typical Athena WFI observations.

中文翻译：

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使用Athena广域成像仪探索快速瞬态检测

X射线瞬变是宇宙天空中最神秘的物体之一。近年来，其瞬态行为的不可预测性和内在本质促使了许多研究。尽管在该领域已经取得了重大进展，但是由于对任何瞬态事件的快速跟踪的延迟，常常妨碍了对此类事件的更全面的了解。减轻此约束的有效方法将是设计一种用于这种瞬态现象的近实时检测的方法。用于高能天体物理学/宽视场成像仪的先进望远镜（Athena / WFI）具有40'×40'的视野和较大的有效面积，每天将检测大量X射线可变或瞬变物体。我们讨论了一种使用WFI快速检测车载或基于地面的X射线瞬变的算法。