Collaborative Research: WoU-MMA: Opening the Infrared Window into Multi-Messenger Astrophysics

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

For most of human history, light has been the only tool available for astronomers to study the nature of objects in the distant universe. Recently, gravitational wave interferometers and high energy neutrino experiments have achieved the first direct detection of spacetime perturbations and particles from distant cosmic explosions, coincident with conventional observation of transients using visible light. The emerging discipline of multi-messenger astrophysics combines information from gravitational waves, neutrinos and light each probing a different physical scale and process to unravel the physics of extreme cosmic events that test our understanding of strong gravity and the end stages of stars. This project will open the relatively unexplored infrared sky to time-domain surveys. A sensitive wide-field infrared telescope, the Wide-Field InfraRed Transient Explorer, WINTER, at Palomar Observatory will be dedicated to multi-messenger astrophysics. The program will include graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, undergraduate students for summer projects and senior theses, and high school students and high school teachers for summer projects. The project plans to work with multiple diversity initiatives reaching out to women and underrepresented minorities. Three scientific goals will be pursued by this project. Firstly, a search will be conducted for infrared counterparts to binary neutron star mergers and neutron star black hole mergers during the LIGO/Virgo fourth gravitational wave observing run. The advantage of WINTER's infrared search is that the emission is predicted to be ubiquitous and much less affected by viewing angle, mass ratio, remnant lifetime and opacity distribution. Characterizing the counterpart will reveal information regarding the heavy elements that were synthesized. Secondly, a search for infrared counterparts to high energy neutrino triggers from ICECUBE will be undertaken. Thirdly, a search for stellar mergers of the most massive stars will be made to derive a complete luminosity function and rate estimate. Insights during this common envelope phase will have implications on many branches of stellar evolution, including multi-messenger progenitor systems. The project will participate in existing diversity initiatives for undergraduate and high school students at Caltech, California State University, California Community Colleges, MIT and the Pasadena Unified School District. The project advances the goals of the Windows on the Universe Big Idea. 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.