0000000000377118
AUTHOR
Dieter H. Hartmann
The MEGA Project for Medium Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy
The Medium Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy (MEGA) telescope concept will soon be proposed as a MIDEX mission. This mission would enable a sensitive all-sky survey of the medium-energy gamma-ray sky (0.4–50 MeV) and bridge the huge sensitivity gap between the COMPTEL and OSSE experiments on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and the visionary Advanced Compton Telescope (ACT) mission. The scientific goals include compiling a much larger catalog of sources in this energy range, performing far deeper searches for supernovae, better measuring the galactic continuum and line emissions, and identifying the components of the cosmic diffuse gamma-ray emission. MEGA records and images gamma rays by complet…
The e-ASTROGAM gamma-ray space observatory for the multimessenger astronomy of the 2030s
e-ASTROGAM is a concept for a breakthrough observatory space mission carrying a gamma-ray telescope dedicated to the study of the non-thermal Universe in the photon energy range from 0.15 MeV to 3 GeV. The lower energy limit can be pushed down to energies as low as 30 keV for gamma-ray burst detection with the calorimeter. The mission is based on an advanced space-proven detector technology, with unprecedented sensitivity, angular and energy resolution, combined with remarkable polarimetric capability. Thanks to its performance in the MeV-GeV domain, substantially improving its predecessors, e-ASTROGAM will open a new window on the non-thermal Universe, making pioneering observations of the…
Discovery and Identification of MAXI J1621-501 as a Type I X-Ray Burster with a Super-orbital Period
MAXI J1621-501 is the first Swift/XRT Deep Galactic Plane Survey transient that was followed up with a multitude of space missions (NuSTAR, Swift, Chandra, NICER, INTEGRAL, and MAXI) and ground-based observatories (Gemini, IRSF, and ATCA). The source was discovered with MAXI on 2017 October 19 as a new, unidentified transient. Further observations with NuSTAR revealed 2 Type I X-ray bursts, identifying MAXI J1621-501 as a Low Mass X-ray Binary (LMXB) with a neutron star primary. Overall, 24 Type I bursts were detected from the source during a 15 month period. At energies below 10 keV, the source spectrum was best fit with three components: an absorbed blackbody with kT = 2.3 keV, a cutoff p…
The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing
The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing (LOFT) was studied within ESA M3 Cosmic Vision framework and participated in the final down-selection for a launch slot in 2022-2024. Thanks to the unprecedented combination of effective area and spectral resolution of its main instrument, LOFT will study the behaviour of matter under extreme conditions, such as the strong gravitational field in the innermost regions of accretion flows close to black holes and neutron stars, and the supra-nuclear densities in the interior of neutron stars. The science payload is based on a Large Area Detector (LAD, 10 m 2 effective area, 2-30 keV, 240 eV spectral resolution, 1 deg collimated field of view) and a WideFi…
ORIGIN: metal creation and evolution from the cosmic dawn
Herder, Jan-Willem den et al.
MEGA: a medium-energy gamma-ray astronomy mission concept
The Medium Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy (MEGA) telescope concept will soon be proposed as a MIDEX mission. This mission would enable a sensitive all-sky survey of the medium-energy gamma-ray sky (0.4 - 50 MeV) and bridge the huge sensitivity gap between the COMPTEL and OSSE experiments on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the SPI and IBIS instruments on INTEGRAL, and the visionary Advanced Compton Telescope (ACT) mission. The scientific goals include, among other things, compiling a much larger catalog of sources in this energy range, performing far deeper searches for supernovae, better measuring the galactic continuum and line emissions, and identifying the components of the cosmic diffuse…
Dense matter with eXTP
In this White Paper we present the potential of the Enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry (eXTP) mission for determining the nature of dense matter; neutron star cores host an extreme density regime which cannot be replicated in a terrestrial laboratory. The tightest statistical constraints on the dense matter equation of state will come from pulse profile modelling of accretion-powered pulsars, burst oscillation sources, and rotation-powered pulsars. Additional constraints will derive from spin measurements, burst spectra, and properties of the accretion flows in the vicinity of the neutron star. Under development by an international Consortium led by the Institute of High Energy Physics o…