Related papers: Exploring the Early Universe with Gaia and THEIA
THESEUS is a medium size space mission of the European Space Agency, currently under evaluation for a possible launch in 2032. Its main objectives are to investigate the early Universe through the observation of gamma-ray bursts and to…
The recent claim by BICEP2 of evidence for primordial gravitational waves from inflation has focused interest on the potential for early-Universe cosmology using observations of gravitational waves. In addition to cosmic microwave…
The GAIA space observatory was recently approved as Cornerstone 6 of ESA's science program, to be launched no later than mid-2012. It will provide a stereoscopic and kinematic census of about 10^9 stars throughout our Galaxy (and into the…
We use the framework of microlensing to show that observations of binary systems, such as those made by {\it Gaia}, combined with follow-up weak lensing measurements, can provide a means to probe halos of exotic matter, possibly clumped…
We study the prospects of detection at terrestrial and space interferometers, as well as at pulsar timing array experiments, of a stochastic gravitational wave background which can be produced in models of axion inflation. This potential…
ESA's Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics (GAIA) holds the promise of mapping out the detailed phase space structure of the Galactic halo by providing unprecedented annual proper motion and parallax of $1-10\muas$ astrometric…
Theia is an astrometric mission proposed to ESA in 2014 for which one of the scientific objectives is detecting Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of nearby solar-type stars. This objective requires the capability to measure…
We present GaiaHub, a publicly available tool that combines $Gaia$ measurements with $Hubble$ $Space$ $Telescope$ ($HST$) archival images to derive proper motions (PMs). It increases the scientific impact of both observatories beyond their…
The LISA mission will likely be a signal dominated detector, such that one challenge is the separation of the different astrophysical sources, and to distinguish between them and the instrumental noise. One of the goals of LISA is to probe…
A complicated and ambitious space mission like Gaia needs a careful monitoring and evaluation of the functioning of all components of the satellite. This has to be performed on different time scales, by different methods, and on different…
In this article we present an overview of the ESA Gaia mission and of the unprecedented impact that Gaia will have on the field of variable star research. We summarise the contents and impact of the first Gaia data release on the…
Pulsar timing experiments are reaching sufficient sensitivity to detect a postulated stochastic gravitational wave background generated by merging supermassive black hole systems in the cores of galaxies. We describe the techniques behind…
We investigate the potential of high-precision astrometry with GAIA for detection of giant planetary companions to nearby white dwarfs. If one considers that, to date, no confirmed planets around single white dwarfs are known, the results…
Detection of a gravitational-wave signal of non-astrophysical origin would be a landmark discovery, potentially providing a significant clue to some of our most basic, big-picture scientific questions about the Universe. In this white…
[abridged] We carry out numerical simulations to gauge the Gaia potential for precision astrometry of exoplanets orbiting a sample of known dM stars within 30 pc from the Sun. (1) It will be possible to accurately determine orbits and…
GAIA has been approved to provide the data needed to quantify the formation and evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy, and its near neighbours. That requires study of all four key Galactic stellar populations: Bulge, Halo, Thick Disk, Thin…
The Gaia astrometric mission - the Hipparcos successor - is described in some detail, with its three instruments: the two (spectro)photometers (BP and RP) covering the range 330-1050 nm, the white light (G-band) imager dedicated to…
ESA's Gaia space astrometry mission is performing an all-sky survey of stellar objects. At the beginning of the nominal mission in July 2014, an operation scheme was adopted that enabled Gaia to routinely acquire observations of all stars…
We explore the potential of gravitational waves (GWs) to probe the pre-BBN era of the early universe, focusing on the effects of energy injection. Specifically, we examine a hidden sector alongside the Standard Model that undergoes a strong…
The discovery of dark energy by the first generation of high-redshift supernova surveys has generated enormous interest beyond cosmology and has dramatic implications for fundamental physics. Distance measurements using supernova explosions…