Cosmic Origins News

21 March 2023

Arcus Probe Community Science Meeting May 4–5

From Laura Brenneman, Arcus Deputy PI

Dear Colleagues

Please join us May 4–5, 2023 for the Arcus Probe Community Science Meeting. To enable the widest possible attendance, it will be an online-only format each day between the hours of 11am–2pm, U.S. Eastern time. This meeting will introduce Arcus and its capabilities, as well as present the baseline and potential general observer programs.

Arcus will be submitted to NASA's 2023 Astrophysics Probe Explorer announcement of opportunity. It features two instruments: an X-ray grating spectrometer (10–60 A at R=3500, with zero-order from ~0.2-10 keV) and an FUV grating spectrometer (950–1580 A with R=21,000). The simultaneous combination of these instruments will yield unprecedented spectral sensitivity to address some of the highest priority science questions posed by Astro2020. A response time of 4 hours to targets of opportunity will offer revolutionary insight into the physics at work in the most energetic transient phenomena in the Universe.

Arcus's baseline science mission will focus on how feedback processes drive structure formation and evolution from stellar scales out to the intergalactic filaments of the cosmic web. The capabilities of the mission will also ensure that it is an invaluable resource for the entire astrophysics community and a critical component of the panchromatic landscape of the 2030s. We want your input, and are particularly interested in hearing from early career researchers and those with multi-wavelength/multi-messenger science interests.

To register for the meeting (it's free), and to learn more about the Arcus Probe mission, please visit http://www.arcusxray.org/meetings.html. Abstract submission will close on April 7. We hope to see you May 4–5!

Randall Smith (PI) and Laura Brenneman (Deputy PI), for the Arcus team