Science objectives of the Einstein Probe mission
Abstract
The Einstein Probe (EP) is an interdisciplinary mission of time-domain and X-ray astronomy. Equipped with a wide-field lobster-eye X-ray focusing imager, EP will discover cosmic X-ray transients and monitor the X-ray variability of known sources in 0.5-4 keV, at a combination of detecting sensitivity and cadence that is not accessible to the previous and current wide-field monitoring missions. EP can perform quick characterisation of transients or outbursts with a Wolter-I X-ray telescope onboard. In this paper, the science objectives of the Einstein Probe mission are presented. EP is expected to enlarge the sample of previously known or predicted but rare types of transients with a wide range of timescales. Among them, fast extragalactic transients will be surveyed systematically in soft X-rays, which include {\gamma}-ray bursts and their variants, supernova shock breakouts, and the predicted X-ray transients associated with binary neutron star mergers. EP will detect X-ray tidal disruption events and outbursts from active galactic nuclei, possibly at an early phase of the flares for some. EP will monitor the variability and outbursts of X-rays from white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes in our and neighbouring galaxies at flux levels fainter than those detectable by the current instruments, and is expected to discover new objects. A large sample of stellar X-ray flares will also be detected and characterised. In the era of multi-messenger astronomy, EP has the potential of detecting the possible X-ray counterparts of gravitational wave events, neutrino sources, and ultra-high energy {\gamma}-ray and cosmic ray sources. EP is expected to help advance the studies of extreme objects/phenomena and their underlying physical processes revealed in the dynamic X-ray universe, as well as studies in other areas of X-ray astronomy.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2501.07362,
title = {Science objectives of the Einstein Probe mission},
author = {Weimin Yuan and Lixin Dai and Hua Feng and Chichuan Jin and Peter Jonker and Erik Kuulkers and Yuan Liu and Kirpal Nandra and Paul O'Brien and Luigi Piro and Arne Rau and Nanda Rea and Jeremy Sanders and Lian Tao and Junfeng Wang and Xuefeng Wu and Bing Zhang and Shuangnan Zhang and Shunke Ai and Johannes Buchner and Esra Bulbul and Hechao Chen and Minghua Chen and Yong Chen and Yu-Peng Chen and Alexis Coleiro and Francesco Coti Zelati and Zigao Dai and Xilong Fan and Zhou Fan and Susanne Friedrich and He Gao and Chong Ge and Mingyu Ge and Jinjun Geng and Giancarlo Ghirlanda and Giulia Gianfagna and Lijun Gou and Sébastien Guillot and Xian Hou and Jingwei Hu and Yongfeng Huang and Long Ji and Shumei Jia and S. Komossa and Albert K. H. Kong and Lin Lan and An Li and Ang Li and Chengkui Li and Dongyue Li and Jian Li and Zhaosheng Li and Zhixing Ling and Ang Liu and Jinzhong Liu and Liangduan Liu and Zhu Liu and Jiawei Luo and Ruican Ma and Pierre Maggi and Chandreyee Maitra and Alessio Marino and Stephen Chi-Yung Ng and Haiwu Pan and Surangkhana Rukdee and Roberto Soria and Hui Sun and Pak-Hin Thomas Tam and Aishwarya Linesh Thakur and Hui Tian and Eleonora Troja and Wei Wang and Xiangyu Wang and Yanan Wang and Junjie Wei and Sixiang Wen and Jianfeng Wu and Ting Wu and Di Xiao and Dong Xu and Renxin Xu and Yanjun Xu and Yu Xu and Haonan Yang and Bei You and Heng Yu and Yunwei Yu and Binbin Zhang and Chen Zhang and Guobao Zhang and Liang Zhang and Wenda Zhang and Yu Zhang and Ping Zhou and Zecheng Zou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.07362},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
67 pages, 24 figures, accepted for publication in SCIENCE CHINA Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy