Related papers: High Time Resolution Astrophysics in the Extremely…
The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing (LOFT) was studied within ESA M3 Cosmic Vision framework and participated in the final down-selection for a launch slot in 2022-2024. Thanks to the unprecedented combination of effective area and…
Cosmology is intrinsically intertwined with questions in fundamental physics. The existence of non-baryonic dark matter requires new physics beyond the Standard Model of elemenatary-particle interactions and Einstein's general relativity,…
Research in cosmic rays is now nearly a century old, but most of the fundamental questions in this field remain unanswered, on the other hand the perspectives of future studies in the next decade are very bright. New detectors will provide…
High-resolution spectrographs open a detailed window onto the atmospheres of stars and planets. As the number of systems observed with different instruments grows, it is crucial to develop a standard in analyzing spectral time series of…
Equatorial density enhancements (EDEs) are a very common astronomical phenomenon. Studies of the circumstellar environments (CSE) of young stellar objects and of evolved stars have shown that these objects often possess these features.…
To continue the unparalleled success of the Very Large Array (VLA) for radio astronomy, the facility is currently being converted to become the 'Expanded VLA' (EVLA). The EVLA will radically improve the VLA in order to cover the full…
This paper briefly reviews some of the exciting studies of the local Universe that will be enabled with the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). As illustrative examples, it summarizes a few of the scientific goals that have been set…
The high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy made possible by the 1999 deployment of the Chandra X-ray Observatory has revolutionized our understanding of stellar X-ray emission. Many puzzles remain, though, particularly regarding the mechanisms…
Study of energetic cosmic explosions as a part of time domain astronomy is one of the key areas that could be pursued with upcoming Giant segmented optical-IR telescopes with a very large photon collecting area applying cutting edge…
Transmission spectroscopy is an effective technique for probing exoplanetary atmospheres. While most observations have relied on space facilities such as HST and JWST, ground-based high-resolution transmission spectroscopy (HRTS) has also…
High-contrast observations in optical and infrared astronomy are defined as any observation requiring a technique to reveal a celestial object of interest that is in such close angular proximity to another source brighter by a factor of at…
We describe and summarize the optical challenges for future instrumentation for Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs). Knowing the complex instrumental requirements is crucial for the successful design of 30-60m aperture telescopes. After all,…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) array that comprises millimeter- and submillimeter-wavelength telescopes separated by distances comparable to the diameter of the Earth. At a nominal operating…
Optical interferometry provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of stellar structure and evolution. Through direct observation of rotationally distorted photospheres at sub-milliarcsecond scales, we are now able to…
High precision astrometry aims at source position determination to a very small fraction of the diffraction image size, in high SNR regime. One of the key limitations to such goal is the optical response variation of the telescope over a…
Ultra High Cosmic Rays (UHECR) Astronomy may be correlated to a primary parental Neutrino Astronomy: indeed any far BL Lac Jet or GRB, sources of UHECR, located at cosmic edges, may send its signal, overcoming the severe GZK cut-off, by…
RISTRETTO is a visible high-resolution spectrograph fed by an extreme adaptive optics (XAO) system, to be proposed as a visitor instrument on ESO VLT. The main science goal of RISTRETTO is the detection and atmospheric characterization of…
LOFT, the Large Observatory for X-ray Timing, is a new space mission concept devoted to observations of Galactic and extra-Galactic sources in the X-ray domain with the main goals of probing gravity theory in the very strong field…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has significantly advanced our ability to study black holes, achieving unprecedented spatial resolution and revealing horizon-scale structures. Notably, these observations feature a distinctive dark…
The recent observational evidence for the acceleration of the universe demonstrates that canonical theories of cosmology and particle physics are incomplete - if not incorrect - and that new physics is out there, waiting to be discovered.…