GrailQuest and HERMES: hunting for gravitational wave electromagnetic counterparts and probing space-time quantum foam

• Authors: BURDERI Luciano; SALVO Tiziana Di; RIGGIO Alessandro; GAMBINO Angelo Francesco; SANNA Andrea; FIORE Fabrizio; AMARILLI Fabrizio; AMATI Lorenzo; AMBROSINO Filippo; AMELINO-CAMELIA Giovanni; ANITRA Alessio; BARBERA Marco; BECHINI Michele; BELLUTTI Pierluigi; BERTACCIN Roberto; BERTUCCIO Giuseppe; CAMPANA Riccardo; CAO Jiewei; CAPOZZIELLO Salvatore; CERAUDO Francesco; CHEN Tianxiang; CINELLI Marco; CITOSSI Marco; CLERICI Aurora; COLAGROSSI Andrea; COSTA Enrico; CURZEL Serena; LAURENTIS Mariafelicia De; CASA Giovanni Della; VALLE Massimo Della; DEMENEV Evgeny; SANTO Melania Del; DILILLO Giuseppe; EFREMOV Pavel; EVANGELISTA Yuri; FEROCI Marco; FERRUGLIO Chiara; FERRANDI Fabrizio; FIORINI Mauro; FIORITO Michele; FRONTERA Filippo; FUSCHINO Fabio; GACNIK Dejan; GALGOCZI Gabor; GAO Na; GANDOLA Massimo; GHIRLANDA Giancarlo; GAMBOC Andreja; GRASSI Marco; GUIDORZI Cristiano; GUZMAN Alejandro; IARIA Rosario; KARLICA Mile; KOSTIC Uros; LABANTI Claudio; ROSA Giovanni La; CICERO Ugo Lo; FERNANDEZ Borja Lopez; LUNGHI Paolo; MALCOVATI Piero; MASELLI Alessandro; MANCA Arianna; MELE Filippo; MILANKOVICH Dorottya; MONGE Angel; MORGANTE Gianluca; NAVA Lara; NEGRI Barbara; NOGARA Paolo; OHNO Masanori; OTTOLINA Daniele; PASQUALE Andrea; PAL Andras; PERRI Matteo; PICCININ Margherita; PIAZZOLLA Raffaele; PIRROTTA Simone; PLIEGO-CABALLERO Samuel; PRINETTO Jacopo; PUCACCO Giuseppe; PUCCETTI Simonetta; RAPISARDA Massimo; RASHEVSKAYA Irina; RASHEVSKY Alexander; ŘÍPA Jakub; RUSSO Francesco; PAPITTO Alessandro; PIRANOMONTE Silvia; SANTANGELO Andrea; SCALA Francesca; SCIARRONE Giulia; SELCAN David; SILVESTRINI Stefano; SOTTILE Giuseppe; ROTOVNIK Tomaz; TENZER Christoph; TROISI Ivan; VACCHI Andrea; VIRGILLI Enrico; WERNER Norbert; WANG Lingjun; XU Yupeng; ZAMPA Gianluigi; ZAMPA Nicola; ZANE Silvia; ZANOTTI Giovanni
• Year of publication: 2021
• Type: Article in Proceedings
• Conference: Proceedings Volume 11444, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2020: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray
• MU Faculty or unit: Faculty of Science

Web

• https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.07119.pdf
• https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2561779

• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2561779
• Keywords: Gamma-Ray Bursts; X-rays; CubeSats; nano-satellites; temporal triangulation; Quantum gravity; Gravitational Wave counterparts; all-sky monitor; Temporal triangulation
• Description: Within Quantum Gravity theories, different models for space-time quantisation predict an energy dependent speed for photons. Although the predicted discrepancies are minuscule, GRB, occurring at cosmological distances, could be used to detect this signature of space-time granularity with a new concept of modular observatory of huge overall collecting area consisting in a fleet of small satellites in low orbits, with sub-microsecond time resolution and wide energy band (keV-MeV). The enormous number of collected photons will allow to effectively search these energy dependent delays. Moreover, GrailQuest will allow to perform temporal triangulation of high signal-to-noise impulsive events with arc-second positional accuracies: an extraordinary sensitive X-ray/Gamma all-sky monitor crucial for hunting the elusive electromagnetic counterparts of GW. A pathfinder of GrailQuest is already under development through the HERMES project: a fleet of six 3U cube-sats to be launched by 2021/22.

Related projects

• MUNI Award in Science and Humanities 3