0000000000471815
AUTHOR
F. Fiore
Localisation of gamma-ray bursts from the combined SpIRIT+HERMES-TP/SP nano-satellite constellation
Multi-messenger observations of the transient sky to detect cosmic explosions and counterparts of gravitational wave mergers critically rely on orbiting wide-FoV telescopes to cover the wide range of wavelengths where atmospheric absorption and emission limit the use of ground facilities. Thanks to continuing technological improvements, miniaturised space instruments operating as distributed-aperture constellations are offering new capabilities for the study of high energy transients to complement ageing existing satellites. In this paper we characterise the performance of the upcoming joint SpIRIT + HERMES-TP/SP nano-satellite constellation for the localisation of high-energy transients th…
The NHXM observatory
Exploration of the X-ray sky has established X-ray astronomy as a fundamental astrophysical discipline. While our knowledge of the sky below 10 keV has increased dramatically (∼8 orders of magnitude) by use of grazing incidence optics, we still await a similar improvement above 10 keV, where to date only collimated instruments have been used. Also ripe for exploration is the field of X-ray polarimetry, an unused fundamental tool to understand the physics and morphology of X-ray sources. Here we present a novel mission, the New Hard X-ray Mission (NHXM) that brings together for the first time simultaneous high-sensitivity, hard-X-ray imaging, broadband spectroscopy and polarimetry. NHXM will…
GrailQuest & 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 1E-23 for photons in the gamma-ray band (100 keV). Therefore, to detect this effect, light must propagate over enormous distances and the experiment must have extraordinary sensit…
GRB 050904 at redshift 6.3: observations of the oldest cosmic explosion after the Big Bang
We present optical and near-infrared observations of the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst GRB 050904. We derive a photometric redshift z = 6.3, estimated from the presence of the Lyman break falling between the I and J filters. This is by far the most distant GRB known to date. Its isotropic-equivalent energy is 3.4x10^53 erg in the rest-frame 110-1100 keV energy band. Despite the high redshift, both the prompt and the afterglow emission are not peculiar with respect to other GRBs. We find a break in the J-band light curve at t_b = 2.6 +- 1.0 d (observer frame). If we assume this is the jet break, we derive a beaming-corrected energy E_gamma = (4-12)x10^51 erg. This limit shows that GRB 050…
XMM-Newton survey of the ELAIS-S1 field
The formation and evolution of cosmic structures can be probed by studying the evolution of the luminosity function of the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs), galaxies and clusters of galaxies and of the clustering of the X-ray active Universe, compared to the IR-UV active Universe. To this purpose, we have surveyed with XMM-Newton the central ~0.6{deg}^2^ region of the ELAIS-S1 field down to flux limits of ~5.5x10^-16^erg/cm^2^/s (0.5-2keV, soft band, S), ~2x10^-15^erg/cm^2^/s (2-10keV, hard band, H), and ~4x10^-15^erg/cm^2^/s (5-10keV, ultra hard band, HH). We present here the analysis of the XMM-Newton observations, the number counts in different energy bands and the clustering properties of …