2019/04/11 by Melissa L. Graham, M. L. Graham, Danny Milisavljevic +51 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1904.05957
8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Astro2020 call for Science White Papers
arxiv created 2019/04/11 · openalex publication_date 2019/04/11 · arxiv updated 2019/04/15 · openalex created_date 2024/04/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will open a discovery frontier for faint and fast transients with its ability to detect variable flux components down to ∼24.5 mag in a ∼30 second exposure. Spectroscopic follow-up of such phenomena - which are necessary for understanding the physics of stellar explosions - can require a rapid response and several hours with a 8-10m telescope, making it both expensive and difficult to acquire. The future Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) would be able to provide not only spectroscopy but capabilities such as spectropolarimetry and high-resolution diffraction-limited imaging that would contribute to future advances in our physical understanding of stellar explosions. In this white paper we focus on several specific scientific impacts in the field of explosive transient astrophysics that will be generated by the combination of LSST's discovery abilities and ELTs' follow-up capacities. First, we map the uncharted frontier of discovery phase-space in terms of intrinsic luminosity and timescales for explosive transients, where we expect the unexpected. We then focus on six areas with open science questions for known transients: the progenitors of thermonuclear supernovae (SNe), mass loss prior to core collapse, asymmetry in stellar explosions, light echoes, high-z transients, and strongly lensed SNe. We conclude with a brief discussion of the practical aspects of ELT & LSST synergy.