Calculating Radio Transient Rates Using Realistic Simulations

Several new radio facilities, such as the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa, have a field of view and sensitivity well suited for transient searches. This makes it more important than ever to accurately determine transient rates and surface densities in radio surveys. The work presented here seeks to do this task by using Monte-Carlo simulations. In particular, the user inputs either a real or simulated observational setup, and the simulations code calculates transient rate or surface density as a function of transient duration and peak flux. These simulations allow for simulating a wide variety of scenarios, including observations with varying sensitivities and durations, observations with gaps due to calibrator scans, multiple overlapping telescope pointings, and a wide variety of light curve shapes, with the user having the ability to easily add more. While the current scientific focus is on the radio regime, the simulations code can be easily adapted to other wavelength regimes.