The Simons Observatory: Development of a Pipeline to Detect Rapid Transients in Time-Ordered Data

We introduce a method for detecting astrophysical transients evolving on timescales of milliseconds to minutes using cosmic microwave background (CMB) survey telescopes. While previous transient searches in CMB data operate in map space, our pipeline directly processes the raw time-ordered data, enabling sensitivity to fast, dynamic signals. We integrate our detection approach into the Simons Observatory time-domain pipeline and assess the performance by injecting symmetric, stellar flare-like light curves into simulated observations. For events flaring with a timescale of 0.5 s, the pipeline detects \(\gtrsim90\) % of events at flux densities of 800, 1150, 1650, and 4250 mJy when measured in the 93, 145, 225, and 280 GHz bands respectively. At a fixed peak flux density, the pipeline more readily detects longer flares. The limiting flux density for 90 % completeness is four times lower for a \(\ge5\) s flare than for a 0.5 s flare, while the flux density limits for \(\gtrsim50\) % detection efficiency are comparable to the rms noise of the time-ordered data. We are able to determine the position of detected events in each observing band, with a positional uncertainty at the detection threshold comparable to the telescope resolution at that band. These results demonstrate the readiness of this pipeline for incorporation into upcoming Simons Observatory data analyses.