1. The Gamow Explorer: a Gamma-Ray Burst Observatory to study the high redshift universe and enable multi-messenger astrophysics
- Author
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White, N. E., Bauer, F. E., Baumgartner, W., Bautz, M., Berger, E., Cenko, S. B., Chang, T. -C., Falcone, A., Fausey, H., Feldman, C., Fox, D., Fox, O., Fruchter, A., Fryer, C., Ghirlanda, G., Gorski, K., Grant, K., Guiriec, S., Hart, M., Hartmann, D., Hennawi, J., Kann, D. A., Kaplan, D., Kennea, A., Kocevski, D., Kouveliotou, C., Lawrence, C., Levan, A. J., Lidz, A., Lien, A., Littenberg, T. B., Mas-Ribas, L., Moss, M., O'Brien, P., O'Meara, J., Palmer, D. M., Pasham, D., Racusin, J., Remillard, R., Roberts, O. J., Roming, P., Rud, M., Salvaterra, R., Sambruna, R., Seiffert, M., Sun, G., Tanvir, N. R., Terrile, R., Thomas, N., van der Horst, A., Verstrand, W. T., Willems, P., Wilson-Hodge, C., Young, E. T., Amati, L., Bozzo, E., Karczewski, O. Ł., Hernandez-Monteagudo, C., Lopez, R. Rebolo, Genova-Santos, R., Rubino-Martin, J. A., Granot, J., Bemiamini, P., Gill, R., Burns, E., Siegmund, O.H., Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España), European Commission, and Siegmund, Oswald H.
- Subjects
Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Astronomy ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics ,Astrophysics ,law.invention ,X-ray astronomy ,Telescope ,Reionization ,Infrared astronomy ,Observatory ,law ,Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) ,Intergalactic medium ,High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) ,Physics ,James Webb Space Telescope ,Astrophysics::Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics ,Redshift ,Galaxy ,Cosmology ,Stars ,Gamma Ray Bursts ,Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics ,Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics ,Gamma-ray burst - Abstract
UV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Space Instrumentation for Astronomy XXII 2021San Diego1 August 2021 through 5 August 2021Code 172616.-- Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, Volume 118212021 Article number 1182109, The Gamow Explorer will use Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) to: 1) probe the high redshift universe (z < 6) when the first stars were born, galaxies formed and Hydrogen was reionized; and 2) enable multi-messenger astrophysics by rapidly identifying Electro-Magnetic (IR/Optical/X-ray) counterparts to Gravitational Wave (GW) events. GRBs have been detected out to z ∼ 9 and their afterglows are a bright beacon lasting a few days that can be used to observe the spectral fingerprints of the host galaxy and intergalactic medium to map the period of reionization and early metal enrichment. Gamow Explorer is optimized to quickly identify high-z events to trigger follow-up observations with JWST and large ground-based telescopes. A wide field of view Lobster Eye X-ray Telescope (LEXT) will search for GRBs and locate them with arc-minute precision. When a GRB is detected, the rapidly slewing spacecraft will point the 5 photometric channel Photo-z Infra-Red Telescope (PIRT) to identify high redshift (z < 6) long GRBs within 100s and send an alert within 1000s of the GRB trigger. An L2 orbit provides < 95% observing efficiency with pointing optimized for follow up by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and ground observatories. The predicted Gamow Explorer high-z rate is, With funding from the Spanish government through the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation SEV-2017-0709
- Published
- 2021