The NuSTAR Galactic Plane Survey: The Legacy Program
Abstract
The NuSTAR Galactic Plane Survey was part of the level one science for the two-year baseline mission. Key aspects of the program were surveying a ~0.7 deg2 region of the Galactic Center to understand the nature of the large source population uncovered by Chandra, and speculated to be magnetic cataclysmic variables; revealing the origin of diffuse emission in molecular clouds and non-thermal filaments by studying their hard X-ray morphology and spectroscopy; revealing the history of past and present activity in Sgr A* through studies of flares and molecular clouds; reveal the overall hard X-ray morphology of the Galactic Center which included detection of numerous PWN, Sgr A-East and the previously unknown central hard X-ray emission.The NuSTAR legacy program is meant to provide significant time (~1.5 Msec) to conduct follow-up observations to maximize the science return from select projects described above, especially those where there would be broad community interest in such follow up, and to conduct new observations whose scale or level of risk might make it difficult for individuals to successfully obtain data through guest observer proposals. The legacy program will be designed with community input, and the data will be immediately public. Examples might include continued monitoring of the Galactic Center for Sgr A* flares and other time-variable sources; large scale follow up of unidentified HESS and INTEGRAL sources; deeper observations of select regions near the Galactic Center to better understand the hard X-ray logN-logS of the Chandra point sources. The talk will serve as a forum for providing input to the design of the legacy program, and to provide information on how to further engage in the process of legacy program design.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #225
- Pub Date:
- January 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015AAS...22522203H