The future is now
- Creators
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Kasliwal, Mansi M.
Abstract
We are living the twenty-first century gold rush: astronomers and physicists have been working together to identify the sites of heavy element production in the Universe (gold included). The theory was clear decades ago: the rapid capture of free neutrons (r-process nucleosynthesis) synthesizes heavy elements (atomic mass range between 70 and 200 amu) and neutron star mergers are a promising site for this process to take place. However, the direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs) was needed to catch neutron stars in the act of merging, and telescopes were needed to pinpoint the location and characterize the electromagnetic (EM) emission. This is not an easy feat. As an example, I describe some lessons learned with a team comprised of 16 institutions around the world: the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH) collaboration (Fig. 1).
Additional Information
© 2020 Springer Nature Limited. Published 13 August 2020; Issue Date September 2020. GROWTH is a National Science Foundation Partnership in International Research and Education programme that comprises 16 institutions around the world: California Institute of Technology (USA), University of Maryland College Park (USA), University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (USA), Texas Tech University (USA), San Diego State University (USA), University of Washington Seattle (USA), Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA), Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan), National Central University (Taiwan), Indian Institute of Astrophysics (India), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (India), Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), The Oskar Klein Centre at Stockholm University (Sweden), Humboldt University (Germany), Liverpool John Moores University (UK) and University of Sydney (Australia). The authors declare no competing interests.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 104967
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- CaltechAUTHORS:20200814-150343488
- Created
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2020-08-17Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field
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- Astronomy Department