ULTRASAT: A wide-field time-domain UV space telescope

Shvartzvald, Y.; Horesh, A.; Birnholtz, O.; Weinstein, A.; Trakhtenbrot, B.; Ben-Ami, S.; Guttman, O.; Pe'er, A.; Wold, I.; Townsend, A.; Mazeh, T.; Aharonson, O.; Rhoads, J. E.; Stone, N.; Ofek, E. O.; Ofir, A.; Arcavi, I.; Worm, S.; Sadeh, I.; Perdelwitz, V.; Sagiv, I.; Poznanski, D.; Hallakoun, N.; Van Santen, J.; Nordin, J.; Kushnir, D.; Soumagnac, M.; Perets, H. B.; Rekhi, P.; Waxman, E.; Berge, D.; Ohm, S.; Zackay, B.; Parsons, D.; Shahaf, S.; Chelouche, D.; Tal-Or, L.; Bühler, Rolf; Guetta, D.; Maoz, D.; Kowalski, Marek; Polishook, D.; Ackermann, Markus; Gal-Yam, A.

Preprint

PUBDB-2023-08030

ULTRASAT: A wide-field time-domain UV space telescope

Shvartzvald, Y. (Corresponding author) ; Waxman, E. ; Gal-Yam, A. ; Ofek, E. O. ; Ben-Ami, S. ; Berge, D.DESY* ; Kowalski, M.DESY* ; Bühler, R.DESY* ; Worm, S.DESY* ; Rhoads, J. E. ; Arcavi, I. ; Maoz, D. ; Polishook, D. ; Stone, N. ; Trakhtenbrot, B. ; Ackermann, M.DESY* ; Aharonson, O. ; Birnholtz, O. ; Chelouche, D. ; Guetta, D. ; Hallakoun, N. ; Horesh, A. ; Kushnir, D. ; Mazeh, T. ; Nordin, J.Extern* ; Ofir, A. ; Ohm, S.DESY* ; Parsons, D.Extern* ; Pe'er, A. ; Perets, H. B. ; Perdelwitz, V. ; Poznanski, D. ; Sadeh, I.DESY* ; Sagiv, I. ; Shahaf, S. ; Soumagnac, M. ; Tal-Or, L. ; Van Santen, J.DESY* ; Zackay, B. ; Guttman, O. ; Rekhi, P. ; Townsend, A.Extern* ; Weinstein, A. ; Wold, I.

2023

[10.3204/PUBDB-2023-08030]

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Please use a persistent id in citations: doi:10.3204/PUBDB-2023-08030

Report No.: arXiv:2304.14482

Abstract: The Ultraviolet Transient Astronomy Satellite (ULTRASAT) is scheduled to be launched to geostationary orbit in 2026. It will carry a telescope with an unprecedentedly large field of view (204 deg$^2$) and NUV (230-290nm) sensitivity (22.5 mag, 5$\sigma$, at 900s). ULTRASAT will conduct the first wide-field survey of transient and variable NUV sources and will revolutionize our ability to study the hot transient universe: It will explore a new parameter space in energy and time-scale (months long light-curves with minutes cadence), with an extra-Galactic volume accessible for the discovery of transient sources that is $>$300 times larger than that of GALEX and comparable to that of LSST. ULTRASAT data will be transmitted to the ground in real-time, and transient alerts will be distributed to the community in $<$15 min, enabling a vigorous ground-based follow-up of ULTRASAT sources. ULTRASAT will also provide an all-sky NUV image to $>$23.5 AB mag, over 10 times deeper than the GALEX map. Two key science goals of ULTRASAT are the study of mergers of binaries involving neutron stars, and supernovae: With a large fraction ($>$50%) of the sky instantaneously accessible, fast (minutes) slewing capability and a field-of-view that covers the error ellipses expected from GW detectors beyond 2025, ULTRASAT will rapidly detect the electromagnetic emission following BNS/NS-BH mergers identified by GW detectors, and will provide continuous NUV light-curves of the events; ULTRASAT will provide early (hour) detection and continuous high (minutes) cadence NUV light curves for hundreds of core-collapse supernovae, including for rarer supernova progenitor types.

Note: 40 pages, 16 figures, 3 tables. Submitted to the AAS journals

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