Search Publications
Faint objects in motion: the new frontier of high precision astrometry
Villaver, Eva; Alves, João; Chemin, Laurent +83 more
Sky survey telescopes and powerful targeted telescopes play complementary roles in astronomy. In order to investigate the nature and characteristics of the motions of very faint objects, a flexibly-pointed instrument capable of high astrometric accuracy is an ideal complement to current astrometric surveys and a unique tool for precision astrophys…
MeerCRAB: MeerLICHT classification of real and bogus transients using deep learning
Paterson, Kerry; Körding, Elmar; Woudt, Patrick +13 more
Astronomers require efficient automated detection and classification pipelines when conducting large-scale surveys of the (optical) sky for variable and transient sources. Such pipelines are fundamentally important, as they permit rapid follow-up and analysis of those detections most likely to be of scientific value. We therefore present a deep le…
Time domain astronomy with the THESEUS satellite
Mukai, K.; Campana, S.; Della Valle, M. +74 more
THESEUS is a medium size space mission of the European Space Agency, currently under evaluation for a possible launch in 2032. Its main objectives are to investigate the early Universe through the observation of gamma-ray bursts and to study the gravitational waves electromagnetic counterparts and neutrino events. On the other hand, its instrument…
The local dark sector
Rhodes, Jason; Bergé, Joel; Pernot-Borràs, Martin +18 more
We speculate on the development and availability of new innovative propulsion techniques in the 2040s, that will allow us to fly a spacecraft outside the Solar System (at 150 AU and more) in a reasonable amount of time, in order to directly probe our (gravitational) Solar System neighborhood and answer pressing questions regarding the dark sector …
Wide band, tunable gamma-ray lenses
Lund, Niels
A new concept for an astronomical telescope in the MeV energy band is presented. The concept builds on Bragg diffraction in crystals, which has been discussed in the past, but so far a design with good sensitivity over a wide energy range has seemed out of reach. In this paper we point out that if we find ways to adjust, in orbit, the individual t…
MVN experiment - All sky monitor for measuring cosmic X-ray background of the universe onboard the ISS
Lutovinov, A. A.; Molkov, S. V.; Pavlinsky, M. N. +6 more
The article describes the MVN experiment (MVN - Monitor Vsego Neba in Russian transliteration) - All Sky Monitor onboard the ISS, which will start in 2021. The main scientific task of the experiment is to measure the cosmic X-ray background in energy range of 6 - 70 keV with unprecedented high absolute and spectral accuracy (about 1%). To reach th…
Chronos - take the pulse of our galactic neighbourhood
Famaey, Benoit; Katz, David; Haywood, Misha +15 more
Understanding our Galaxy's structure, formation, and evolution will, over the next decades, continue to benefit from the wonderful large survey by Gaia, for astrometric, kinematic, and spectroscopic characterization, and by large spectroscopic surveys for chemical characterization. The weak link for full exploitation of these data is age character…
Optical design of the multi-wavelength imaging coronagraph Metis for the solar orbiter mission
Heinzel, P.; Solanki, S. K.; Romoli, M. +31 more
This paper describes the innovative optical design of the Metis coronagraph for the Solar Orbiter ESA-NASA mission. Metis is a multi-wavelength, externally occulted telescope for the imaging of the solar corona in both the visible and ultraviolet wavelength ranges. Metis adopts a novel occultation scheme for the solar disk, that we named "inverse …
Soft proton scattering at grazing incidence from X-ray mirrors: analysis of experimental data in the framework of the non-elastic approximation
Santangelo, Andrea; Molendi, Silvano; Lotti, Simone +9 more
Astronomical X-ray observatories with grazing incidence optics face the problem of pseudo-focusing of low energy protons from the mirrors towards the focal plane. Those protons constitute a variable, unpredictable component of the non X-ray background that strongly affects astronomical observations and a correct estimation of their flux at the foc…
Optimized cutting off transit algorithm to study stellar rotation from PLATO mission light curves
Castro, Matthieu; de Almeida, Leandro; Anthony, Francys +4 more
Measuring the stellar rotation of one of the components in eclipsing binaries (EBs) or planetary systems is a challenge task. The difficulty is mainly due to the complexity of analyzing, in the same light curve, the signal from the stellar rotation mixed with the transit signal of a stellar or substellar companion, like a brown dwarf or planet. Th…