Prospects for observations of transient UV Events with the TAUVEX UV observatory

Abstract

Transient events have posed special problems in astronomy because of the intrinsic difficulty of their detection, and a new class of observatories such as the Pan-STARRS and LSST are coming up specifically to observe these energetic events. In this paper we discuss the UV transient events from two specific sources, such as possible collisions in extrasolar planetary systems and M dwarf flares, to find the probability of their detection by space UV observatories, in particular, by the Tel Aviv University Explorer (TAUVEX). TAUVEX is an UV imaging experiment that will image large parts of the sky in the wavelength region between 1200 and 3500 Å. TAUVEX is a collaborative effort between the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and Tel Aviv University, and is scheduled for an early-2009 launch with at least three years of operations. The scientific instrument has been fabricated at El-Op in Israel, with the satellite interfaces, launch and flight operations provided by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The ground-based software development is the responsibility of the IIA while other aspects of the mission are the joint responsibility of IIA and Tel Aviv University. TAUVEX Science Team (TST) have created a coherent observing program to address several key science objectives, one of them is a program to study short-scale UV transient events. We have estimated that in one year of TAUVEX observations we can expect about 90 − 350 short-scale transient events. Because we obtain real-time telemetry with TAUVEX, we will be able to catch transients early in their evolution and to alert other observatories. We also present a description of TAUVEX mission, including instrument design and its estimated performance.

Prospect for UV observations from the Moon

“…The effective wavelengths for UVIT FUV filters were estimated in Ravichandran et al (2013) probably constitute only ∼1 phots/cm 2 (e.g. Safonova et al 2008).…”

Failed Gamma-Ray Bursts: Thermal Ultraviolet/Soft X-Ray Emission Accompanied by Peculiar Afterglows

“…MAXI-SSC monitors all-sky in the energy range of 0.5 − 10 keV and also has a chance to detect such events (Matsuoka et al 1997). Future UV satellites may be also have the capability to detect these events, such as TAUVEX (wavelength range 120nm-350nm) (Safonova et al 2008). All curves are obtained when the last layer of ejecta became transparent along the line-of-sight, i.e., ϕ = 0 and t j = t w .…”

Prospect for UV observations from the Moon. II. Instrumental design of an ultraviolet imager LUCI

“…also depicts the UV flares flux curves from a terrestrial-size hot spot with T = 22000 K as seen at different distances from Earth, resulting from possible collisions in extrasolar planetary systems, such as e.g. τ Ceti and Eri (see estimates of fluxes inSafonova, Sivaram & Murthy, 2008).…”