The CUBES Science Case
Abstract
We introduce the scientific motivations for the development of the Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES) that is now in construction for the Very Large Telescope. The assembled cases span a broad range of contemporary topics across Solar System, Galactic and extragalactic astronomy, where observations are limited by the performance of current ground-based spectrographs shortwards of 400nm. A brief background to each case is presented and specific technical requirements on the instrument design that flow-down from each case are identified. These were used as inputs to the CUBES design, that will provide a factor of ten gain in efficiency for astronomical spectroscopy over 300-405nm, at resolving powers of R~24,000 and ~7,000. We include performance estimates that demonstrate the ability of CUBES to observe sources that are up to three magnitudes fainter than currently possible at ground-ultraviolet wavelengths, and we place its predicted performance in the context of existing facillities.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2208.01677,
title = {The CUBES Science Case},
author = {Chris Evans and Stefano Cristiani and Cyrielle Opitom and Gabriele Cescutti and Valentina D'Odorico and Juan Manuel Alcalá and Silvia H. P. Alencar and Sergei Balashev and Beatriz Barbuy and Nate Bastian and Umberto Battino and Pamela Cambianica and Roberta Carini and Brad Carter and Santi Cassisi and Bruno Vaz Castilho and Norbert Christlieb and Ryan Cooke and Stefano Covino and Gabriele Cremonese and Katia Cunha and André R. da Silva and Valerio D'Elia and Annalisa De Cia and Gayandhi De Silva and Marcos Diaz and Paolo Di Marcantonio and Heitor Ernandes and Alan Fitzsimmons and Mariagrazia Franchini and Boris T. Gänsicke and Matteo Genoni and Riano E. Giribaldi and Andrea Grazian and Camilla Juul Hansen and Fiorangela La Forgia and Monica Lazzarin and Wagner Marcolino and Marcella Marconi and Alessandra Migliorini and Pasquier Noterdaeme and Claudio Pereira and Bogumil Pilecki and Andreas Quirrenbach and Sofia Randich and Silvia Rossi and Rodolfo Smiljanic and Colin Snodgrass and Julian Stürmer and Andrea Trost and Eros Vanzella and Paolo Ventura and Duncan Wright and Tayyaba Zafar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.01677},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronomy