Rapid multi-band space-based optical timing: revolutionizing accretion physics

Abstract

Optical timing with rapid, seconds-to-minutes cadences with high photometric precision and gap-free long baselines is necessary for an unambiguous physical picture of accretion phenomena, and is only possible from space. Exoplanet-hunting missions like Kepler and TESS have offered an outstanding new window into detailed jet and accretion physics, but have been severely hampered by incomplete calibration and systematics treatments and, most especially, a monochromatic single wide bandpass. Advances made using Kepler and TESS survey data, when considered alongside detailed, expensive multi-color experiments done from the ground, reveal the enormous potential of a space-based multi-color optical timing mission with a high energy focus.