Fast Transients and Furious Spectroscopy: Revealing the High-Speed Sky with Argus Pathfinder

新的传感器技术和大规模生产的光学系统将使Argus Pathfinder项目的测量速度比以前任何望远镜都要快得多，这将使新的发现成为可能。例如，超级耀斑是来自恒星的非常快的辐射爆发。了解超级耀斑的行为对于寻找地球以外的生命至关重要，它需要高速观测以及在事件发生时迅速将多个望远镜指向事件的能力。其他神秘的快速事件已经在其他波长被发现，它们有可见光对应物，可以揭示它们是什么。这些和其他“瞬变”发生在随机的时间和地点在天空中。捕捉它们的最好方法是尽可能快地调查尽可能多的天空。阿格斯探路者将制作一部非常大的天空"电影"。它将观察到数千个瞬变过程，并迅速提醒其他地面和太空望远镜。调查人员将致力于开发和升级莫尔黑德天文馆的主要时域天文学展览，以提高每年与展览互动的约15万名学童的参与度和天文学灵感。2.3GPix Argus Pathfinder阵列覆盖了92度的天空条纹和3.7度的赤经，1.4 "/像素的采样几乎达到了大气可见极限。该系统跟踪天空的每一条条纹15分钟，因此几乎覆盖了整个北方的天空。Pathfinder的CMOS探测器能够以毫秒级的开销阅读整个帧，并且具有1电子级的读取噪声，接近单光子探测能力。Pathfinder的大型高速探测器阵列、宽通带和非常宽的视场联合收割机相结合，使系统能够达到比最接近的可比搜索1秒持续时间瞬态的数量级。在30年代的基础调查中，探路者将比以前能够覆盖整个天空的最好的探测器更深8个星等，它将覆盖比大型望远镜上尝试的深，窄分钟时标探测器大至少5，000倍的调查区域。这些能力将能够全面描述高速天空的特征，并对快速射电爆发和恒星超级耀斑等单个种群进行详细的天体物理测量。对于后者，Pathfinder将获得时间分辨的光变曲线和光谱，以模拟耀斑的所有重要高能粒子释放并限制其可居住性影响。对于最大的耀斑，该系统将使用斯威夫特卫星的新的快速回转能力，以获得分钟时间尺度的直接EUV和X射线通量测量，从而直接测量潜在的行星可居住性影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

New sensor technologies and mass-produced optical systems will allow the Argus Pathfinder project to push to far faster survey speeds than any telescope before, which will enable new discoveries. For example, superflares are very fast bursts of radiation from stars. Understanding superflare behavior is crucial to the search for life beyond Earth, and it requires high-speed observations and the ability to point multiple telescopes very rapidly to events as they occur. Other mysterious fast events have been seen at other wavelengths, and they have visible-light counterparts that can shed light on what they are. These and other “transients” occur at random times and places in the sky. The best way to catch them is to survey as much of the sky as possible, as quickly as possible. Argus Pathfinder will make a “movie” of a very large patch of sky. It will observe thousands of transients as they evolve, and rapidly alert other ground- and space-based telescopes. The investigators will contribute to developing and upgrading the Morehead Planetarium’s major time-domain astronomy exhibit to improve the engagement and astronomical inspiration of the approximately 150,000 schoolchildren who interact with the exhibit each year. The 2.3GPix Argus Pathfinder array covers a stripe of the sky 92 degrees in declination and 3.7 degrees in right ascension, with 1.4”/pixel sampling almost reaching the atmospheric-seeing limit. The system tracks each stripe of the sky for 15 minutes, and thus covers almost the entire Northern sky each night. Pathfinder’s CMOS detectors are capable of reading out entire frames with only millisecond-level overheads and have 1-electron-level readnoise, which comes close to single-photon detection capabilities. Pathfinder’s large high-speed detector array, wide passband, and very wide field of view combine to make the system capable of reaching orders of magnitude beyond the closest comparable searches for 1-second duration transients. In the 30s-cadence base survey, Pathfinder will push eight magnitudes deeper than the best previous probes capable of covering the entire sky, and it will cover a survey area at least 5,000 times larger than the deep, narrow minute-timescale probes attempted on larger telescopes. These capabilities will enable a comprehensive characterization of the high-speed sky – and detailed astrophysical measurements of individual populations such as fast radio bursts and stellar superflares. For the latter, Pathfinder will obtain time-resolved light curves and spectra to model the flares’ all-important energetic particle releases and constrain their habitability impacts. For the largest flares, the system will use the new rapid-slew capabilities of the Swift satellite to obtain minute-timescale direct EUV and X-ray flux measurements, and thus a direct measurement of potential planetary habitability impacts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.