Los Alamos National Laboratory's Contributions to the LOX Mission Concept
Abstract
An array of astronomy research is being conducted at Los Alamos National Lab (LANL), from space instrumentation to supernovae to gamma ray astrophysics. LANL is a member of the Lunar Occultation eXplorer (LOX) collaboration. LOX will use the Moon as a platform to probe the cosmos at MeV energies. In particular, LOX is well-suited for all-sky monitoring and time-domain astronomy pertinent to supernova investigations. Our work at LANL encompasses modifying existing modeling and analysis tools in C++ for spectral analysis, time variability, and cross-correlation with observations at different energies as well as creating predictive sky maps extrapolating from pre-existing source catalogs to assess the expected MeV sensitivity. Complementarily, individuals at LANL are analyzing a data cube of supernovae simulations to parametrize supernovae light curves, working backwards from the data to the physics to find observational signatures across UVOIR and gamma ray energy bands which will be useful to future missions such as LOX. Additionally, this analysis encompasses searching for correlations in the theoretical data to see if they are sensitive to observational folding. Supernovae are a fundamental player in what has been deemed the contemporary 'crisis in cosmology' regarding the Hubble parameter measurement discrepancy at early and late times in the universe. Further constraining the width-luminosity relationship at wavelengths other than UVOIR is essential to how definitively we can address this crisis.
- Publication:
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The 35th Annual New Mexico Symposium
- Pub Date:
- February 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020anms.conf...12C