Search Publications
CHESS: An innovative concept for high-resolution, far-UV spectroscopy
France, Kevin; Youngblood, Allison; Fleming, Brian +4 more
The space ultraviolet (UV) is a critical astronomical observing window, where a multitude of atomic, ionic, and molecular signatures provide crucial insight into planetary, interstellar, stellar, intergalactic, and extragalactic objects. The next generation of large space telescopes require highly sensitive, moderate-to-high resolution UV spectrog…
EREBUS: the EuRopean Extinction BUmp Survey
Shipman, R. F.; Kargl, G.; Skalidis, R. +14 more
Dust in the Interstellar Medium (ISM) is intimately linked to the life cycle of stars. Despite being of such fundamental importance to galaxy evolution, the dynamic behaviour and composition of the ISM are not yet fully understood. Observations of reddened Milky Way OB stars have revealed a strong UV extinction feature around 2175 Å and a precipit…
Background for a gamma-ray satellite on a low-Earth orbit
Hernanz, M.; Cumani, P.; Kiener, J. +2 more
The different background components in a low-Earth orbit have been modeled in the 10 keV to 100 GeV energy range. The model is based on data from previous instruments and it considers both primary and secondary particles, charged particles, neutrons and photons. The necessary corrections to consider the geomagnetic cutoff are applied to calculate …
An automated approach for photometer and dust mass calculation of the Crab nebula
Sauvage, Marc; Nehmé, Cyrine; Kassounian, Sarkis
Ample evidence exists regarding supernovae being a major contributor to interstellar dust. In this work, the deepest far-infrared observations of the Crab Nebula are used to revisit the estimation of the dust mass present in this supernova remnant. Images in filters between 70 and 500 µ m taken by the PACS and SPIRE instruments on-board of t…
A robotic pipeline for fast GRB followup with the Las Cumbrés observatory network
Cucchiara, A.; Steele, I. A.; Marongiu, M. +9 more
In the era of multi-messenger astronomy the exploration of the early emission from transients is key for understanding the encoded physics. At the same time, current generation networks of fully-robotic telescopes provide new opportunities in terms of fast followup and sky coverage. This work describes our pipeline designed for robotic optical fol…
Designing large pixelated CdTe detection planes for hard X-ray transients detection
Bouchet, Laurent; Mate, Sujay; Bajat, Armelle +10 more
In this paper, we discuss the need for very large detection planes for the detection of hard X-ray transients in the multi-messenger era, started with the quasi-simultaneous detection of GRB 170817A by Fermi/GBM and INTEGRAL/SPI and the gravitational waves event GW 170817, detected by the LVC collaboration. After pointing that current and future i…
Soft proton flux on ATHENA focal plane and its impact on the magnetic diverter design
Jacquey, Christian; Piro, Luigi; Molendi, Silvano +11 more
The experience gained with the current generation of X-ray telescopes like Chandra and XMM-Newton has shown that low energy "soft" protons can pose a severe threat to the possibility to exploit scientific data, reducing the available exposure times by up to 50% and introducing a poorly reproducible background component. These soft protons are pres…
The e-ASTROGAM mission. Exploring the extreme Universe with gamma rays in the MeV - GeV range
Ghisellini, G.; Hanlon, L.; Mereghetti, S. +71 more
e-ASTROGAM (`enhanced ASTROGAM') is a breakthrough Observatory space mission, with a detector composed by a Silicon tracker, a calorimeter, and an anticoincidence system, dedicated to the study of the non-thermal Universe in the photon energy range from 0.3 MeV to 3 GeV - the lower energy limit can be pushed to energies as low as 150 keV, albeit w…
A systematic analysis of the XMM-Newton background: II. Properties of the in-Field-Of-View excess component
Tiengo, Andrea; De Luca, Andrea; Marelli, Martino +6 more
We present an accurate characterization of the particle background behaviour on XMM-Newton based on the entire EPIC archive. This corresponds to the largest EPIC data set ever examined. Our results have been obtained thanks to the collaboration between the FP7 European program EXTraS and the ESA R&D ATHENA activity AREMBES. We used as a diagno…
A systematic analysis of the XMM-Newton background: IV. Origin of the unfocused and focused components
Tiengo, A.; Rossetti, M.; Moretti, A. +6 more
We show the results obtained in the FP7 European program EXTraS and in the ESA R&D ATHENA activity AREMBES aimed at a deeper understanding of the XMM-Newton background to better design the ATHENA mission. Thanks to an analysis of the full EPIC archive coupled to the information obtained by the Radiation Monitor we show the cosmic ray origin of…