MeV Astronomy: Unlocking the Multi-Messenger Universe

Splinter Meeting at the 233rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, WA.

Tuesday, January 8, 2019 from 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Location: Washington State Convention Center, 705 Pike St., Seattle, WA 98101
SOC: Carolyn Kierans and Roopesh Ojha

The MeV domain is one of the most underexplored windows on the Universe. From astrophysical jets and extreme physics of compact objects to a large population of unidentified objects, fundamental astrophysics questions can be addressed by a mission that opens a window into the MeV range. The time is right for an MeV mission like AMEGO. Fermi-LAT observations at GeV energies have opened a window to a rich and varied ensemble of astrophysical sources, and demonstrate the promise of an equally rich return from opening the MeV band. Secondly, we are at the dawn of the multimessenger era, with the recent discovery of high energy astrophysical neutrinos by IceCube and the first direct observation of gravitational waves by LIGO. By virtue of its focus on extreme environments, a medium energy gamma-ray surveyor is an excellent partner in these new scientific endeavors.

This splinter meeting will seek to further the conversation on the indispensable science motivating new missions in this spectral window.

Speakers

1:00-1:30: Magnetars, Pulsars, and the Soft Gamma-ray Band

Dr. George Younes (George Washington University)

1:30-2:00: Probing Nuclear Yields in the Gamma-Rays

Dr. Chris Fryer (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

Download: PDF, Movie (.mov)

2:00-2:30: Future Prospects for MeV Polarimetry

Prof. Mark McConnell (University of New Hampshire / SwRI)

Download: PDF

2:30-3:00: Break

3:00-3:30: Constraining the origin of high-energy emission from gravitational wave counterparts through MeV observations

Eric Burns for Dr. Dan Kocevski (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center)

Download: PDF

3:30-4:00: High-energy neutrino and gamma-ray connections of cosmic-ray sources

Prof. Kohta Murase (Pennsylvania State University)

4:00-4:30: The AMEGO Instrument

Sylvain Guiriec for Dr. Elizabeth Hays (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

Download: PDF