Time-domain Astrophysics (TDA), a foundation of Astronomy, has become a major part of current and projected (2020s) astrophysics. While much has been derived from temporal measures of flux and color, the real physics comes from spectroscopy. With LSST coming on line in 2022, with TDA as one of its original drivers, the deluge of Transients and new types of variables will be truly astronomical. With multi-wavelength targeted EM surveys and multi-messenger (e.g. LIGO-international and advanced ICECUBE), and the possibility of full-sky and full-time X-ray imagers, the discovery of new Transients and Variables will flood telescopes on the ground and in space, and this just for multi-band imaging without spectroscopy. In this White Paper we briefly summarize several long-standing major science objectives that can be realized with TDA imaging and spectroscopy (near UV to mid IR) from space. We provide a brief description of how these can be achieved with the Time-domain Spectroscopic Observatory (TSO), a Probe-Class mission concept that ELTs on the ground and Flagship missions in space can not achieve on their own.
@article{arxiv.1903.07828,
title = {Big Science with a nUV-MidIR Rapid-Response 1.3m telescope at L2},
author = {Jonathan Grindlay and Edo Berger and Brian Metzger and Suvi Gezari and Zeljko Ivezic and Jacob Jencson and Mansi Kasliwal and Alexander Kutyrev and Chelsea Macleod and Gary Melnick and Bill Purcell and George Rieke and Yue Shen and Nial Tanvir and Michael Wood Vasey},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.07828},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
Science White Paper submitted (edited) to Astro2020 Decadal Survey. 4 pages, 2 figures, 2 Tables