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Abstract

The identification of extragalactic fast optical transients (eFOTs) as
potential multi-messenger sources is one of the main challenges in time-domain
astronomy. However, recent developments have allowed for probes of
rapidly-evolving transients. With the increasing number of alert streams from
optical time-domain surveys, the next paradigm is building technologies to
rapidly identify the most interesting transients for follow-up. One effort to
make this possible is the fitting of objects to a variety of eFOT lightcurve
models such as kilonovae and $\gamma$-ray burst (GRB) afterglows. In this work,
we describe a new framework designed to efficiently fit transients to light
curve models and flag them for further follow-up. We describe the pipeline's
workflow and a handful of performance metrics, including the nominal sampling
time for each model. We highlight as examples ZTF20abwysqy, the shortest long
gamma ray burst discovered to date, and ZTF21abotose, a core-collapse supernova
initially identified as a potential kilonova candidate.