0000000000431094
AUTHOR
A. Guzmán
GrailQuest and HERMES: hunting for gravitational wave electromagnetic counterparts and probing space-time quantum foam
GrailQuest (Gamma-ray Astronomy International Laboratory for Quantum Exploration of Space-Time) is an ambitious astrophysical mission concept that uses a fleet of small satellites whose main objective is to search for a dispersion law for light propagation in vacuo. Within Quantum Gravity theories, different models for space-time quantization predict relative discrepancies of the speed of photons w.r.t. the speed of light that depend on the ratio of the photon energy to the Planck energy. This ratio is as small as 10-23 for photons in the γ- ray band (100 keV). Therefore, to detect this effect, light must propagate over enormous distances and the experiment must have extraordinary sensitivi…
Preliminary assessment of the ATHENA/WFI non-X-ray background
We present a preliminary assessment of the non-X-ray background for the WFI on board ATHENA conducted at IAAT in the context of the collaborative background and radiation damage working group activities. Our main result is that in the baseline configuration originally assumed for the camera the requirement on the level of non-X-ray background could not be met. In light of the results of Geant4 simulations we propose and discuss a possible optimization of the camera design and pinpoint some open issues to be addressed in the next phase of investigation. One of these concerns the possible contribution to the non-X-ray background from soft protons and ions funneled to the focal plane through t…