| 25.10.2016 | ||
| David Valls-Gabaud
(Observatoire de Paris-Meudon) | ||
| The MESSIER orbiter: lifting the veil on the ultra-low surface brightness universe | ||
| STRESZCZENIE The S-class MESSIER satellite has been designed to explore the extremely low surface brightness universe at UV and optical wavelengths. The two driving science cases target the mildly- and highly non-linear regimes of structure formation to test two key predictions of the LCDM scenario: (1) the detection of the putative large number of galaxy satellites, and (2) the identification of the filaments of the cosmic web. The satellite will drift scan the entire sky in 6 bands covering the 200-1000 nm wavelength range to reach the unprecedented surface brightness levels of 34 mag/arcsec^2 in the optical and 37 mag/arcsec^2 in the UV. Many important secondary science cases will result as free by-products and will be discussed in some detail, such as the luminosity function of galaxies, the contribution and role of intracluster light, the cosmological background radiation at UV and optical wavelengths, the molecular hydrogen content of galaxies at z=0.25, time domain studies of supernovae, GRBs and tidal disruption events, the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium through mass loss of red giant stars and the accurate measure of the BAO scale at z=0.7 with over 30 million galaxies detected in Lyman-alpha at this redshift. It will provide the astronomical community the first space-based reference UV-optical photometric catalogue of the entire sky, and synergies with GAIA, EUCLID and WFIRST will also be discussed. Technical issues will likewise be addressed for possible improvements on the current design. | ||
| O PRELEGENCIE David Valls-Gabaud is Director of Research at CNRS and works at the Observatoire de Paris. Elected Fellow of Churchill College, University of Cambridge, he was educated at the universities of Madrid, Paris and Cambridge. He has hold research positions in Toronto, Cambridge (RGO and IoA), Hawaii (CFHT) and Beijing (NAOC and IHEP), as well as visiting positions at ESO (Garching and Santiago). He was also awarded a Senior International Professorship by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His fields of expertise range from the cosmic microwave background to stellar populations through galaxy evolution and gravitational lensing. While his research activities are mostly focused on theoretical and modelling issues, he currently leads the MESSIER satellite project. He has organised or co-organised 23 international conferences on a variety of topics, and supervised 15 PhD students and 9 postdoctoral researchers who now hold permanent positions in their countries. A member of professional astronomical societies in France, UK, Spain, and USA, he is currently the secretary of commission C3 of the International Astronomical Union, and vice-president of the Societe Astronomique de France (funded in 1887). Formerly Deputy Head of GEPI (Observatoire de Paris), he has hold management positions within the Boards of the French National Committee for Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Astronomy advisory committee of CNES (French Space Agency) and the Scientific Council of the Institut des Sciences de l'Univers (INSU/CNRS). | ||