Ralph Wijers (UvA, on behalf of the LOFAR Transients Key Project)

Synergies between LOFT and LOFAR

As with LOFT, X-ray binaries and X-ray transients of all types are a key object of 
study for LOFAR, for which one of the six Key Science Projects of LOFAR was
founded. These KSPs are expected to get a large fraction of the observing time
with LOFAR, and for the Transients Key Project this will be spent on intensive
monitoring of known sources and on surveying large parts of the Northern sky
at several cadences to search for new transients. Since high-energy astrophysics
sources dominate both the highest and lowest observing frequencies, there is
tremendous potential for synergy and collaboration between the LOFT and LOFAR
programs. Also, the LOFAR data pipelines will have the possibilities of fully
automated generation of alerts, and fully automated folllowup of external alerts,
built into them. This means that also in the rapid followup and analysis of new
sources there will be a lot of opportunity for cross-links between the two instruments.
I will discuss these possibilities generically, and with some specific examples.