QUESTIONNAIRE FOR ASTRONOMERS ABOUT NEUTRINO EARLY WARNING SYSTEM

Name:

Affiliation:

Research interests:

1. Value of an early alert
  ------------------------

1a) What, in your opinion, would be the main value of an early supernova 
alert?  

1b) What types of observations
of early supernova would be interest you the most
if a supernova were caught in its earlier stages?


2. List of "Interested Parties"
  ----------------------------

2.1) Would you or your research group want to be alerted if a neutrino
burst were detected?

--> If no: 
2.2 a)  Can you give recommend people or groups who might be
interested in being on the list?  Astronomers who do large-scale
systematic supernova searches?  Astronomers with access to 
smaller telescopes?  Amateur astronomer associations?  NASA/satellites?

--> If yes: 

2.2 b) Please give details/references on your research/facilities;
also please answer the questions in section 3.

3. Courses of action by supernova hunters
-----------------------------------------

3.1) If your group were given an early alert that a gravitational collapse
had occurred in the galaxy, what would be your course of
action?  

3.2) Would this course of action depend strongly on how well the
source direction was known?  If there were no source direction
available from the neutrino signal would you still 
think it worth looking?

3.3)  Are the facilities you have access to available at any time for an
"emergency" supernova search?  What would such a search entail?

3.4) How soon could there be a supernova search response from your group?

3.5) What fraction of the sky could be scanned in what period of time?
What would be the probability of finding the early supernova source as
a function of time and pointing accuracy from the neutrino signal?

3.6) What rate of "false alarms" would be acceptable?  None?  1 per
year?  >1 per 10 years? (In other words, how "expensive" would a false
alarm be?)

3.7) Can you think any practical details not mentioned
here that should be considered?


4. Means of notification
------------------------

4.1) What form of early supernova alert would be most useful to you?
WWW, IAU circular email, telegram, phone call, beeper?


5.  What sort of information is needed/useful?  
----------------------------------------------

5.1) Clearly source direction is useful; how useful? (similar to 3.2)

5.2) How important is promptness of warning?
  

6. Please give any more comments or suggestions you may have.
-------------------------------------------------------------


Also, any questions you may have will be answered promptly.

Thanks!