CaltechAUTHORS
Published April 2014 | Version Published + Erratum + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Science with a Wide-field UV Transient Explorer

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Weizmann Institute of Science
  • 2. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 3. ROR icon Tel Aviv University
  • 4. ROR icon Indian Institute of Astrophysics
  • 5. ROR icon Ames Research Center

Abstract

The time-variable electromagnetic sky has been well-explored at a wide range of wavelengths. In contrast, the ultra-violet (UV) variable sky is relatively poorly explored, even though it offers exciting scientific prospects. Here, we review the potential scientific impact of a wide-field UV survey on the study of explosive and other transient events, as well as known classes of variable objects, such as active galactic nuclei and variable stars. We quantify our predictions using a fiducial set of observational parameters which are similar to those envisaged for the proposed ULTRASAT mission. We show that such a mission would be able to revolutionize our knowledge about massive star explosions by measuring the early UV emission from hundreds of events, revealing key physical parameters of the exploding progenitor stars. Such a mission would also detect the UV emission from many tens of tidal-disruption events of stars by supermassive black holes at galactic nuclei and enable a measurement of the rate of such events. The overlap of such a wide-field UV mission with existing and planned gravitational-wave and high-energy neutrino telescopes makes it especially timely.

Additional Information

© 2014 American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 May 20; accepted 2014 January 13; published 2014 March 11. We thank M. Van Kerkwijk and B. E. Schaefer for useful discussions. This research has been supported by grants from the Israeli Space Agency and the Keck Institute for Space Science (KISS).

Attached Files

Published - 1538-3881_147_4_79.pdf

Submitted - 1303.6194v1.pdf

Erratum - 1538-3881_148_6_138.pdf

Files

1303.6194v1.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
45429
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20140501-131643496

Related works

Describes
http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.6194 (URL)
10.1088/0004-6256/148/6/138 (DOI)

Funding

Israel Space Agency
Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS)

Dates

Created
2014-05-01
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2023-06-01
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Keck Institute for Space Studies , Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) , Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS) , Physics Department