Interferometric imaging of millisecond transients at 1 TB/hour

Studies of pulsars, flare stars, and other fast transients have typically been pursued by single-dish telescopes due to their computational simplicity and manageable data flow. Interferometers are poised to revolutionize the field via their large field of view, fine spatial resolution and interference robustness. Interferometric localization will associate radio transients with multiwavelength counterparts to identify progenitors and make novel measurements of the intergalactic medium. I will describe our work using the Jansky Very Large Array to image with millisecond cadence and data rates up to 1 TB/hour. We are applying this data-intensive observing mode in a 150-hour search for extragalactic radio transients, pulsars in M31, and a search for transient neutron stars in our own Galaxy. This and many other science applications are limited by the challenges of big data. We argue that real-time processing and data triage will be required to access these domains in the future.