BlueMUSE: Project Overview and Science Cases

Johan Richard (1) , Roland Bacon (1) , Jérémy Blaizot (1) , Samuel Boissier (2) , Alessandro Boselli (2) , Nicolas Bouché (1) , Jarle Brinchmann , Norberto Castro , Laure Ciesla (2) , Paul Crowther , Emanuele Daddi (3) , Stefan Dreizler , Pierre-Alain Duc (4) , David Elbaz (3) , Benoit Epinat (2) , Chris Evans , Matteo Fossati , Michele Fumagalli , Miriam Garcia , Thibault Garel (1) , Matthew Hayes , Artemio Herrero , Andrew Humphrey , Pascale Jablonka , Sebastian Kamann , Lex Kaper , Andreas Kelz , Jean-Paul Kneib , Alex de Koter , Rolf-Peter Kudritzki , Norbert Langer , Carmela Lardo , Floriane Leclercq , Danny Lennon , Guillaume Mahler , Fabrice Martins (5) , Richard Massey , Peter Mitchell , Ana Monreal-Ibero , Paco Najarro , Cyrielle Opitom , Polychronis Papaderos , Céline Péroux (2) , Yves Revaz , Martin M. Roth , Philippe Rousselot (6) , Andreas Sander , Charlotte Simmonds Wagemann , Ian Smail , Anthony Mark Swinbank , Frank Tramper , Tanya Urrutia , Anne Verhamme , Jorick Vink , Jeremy Walsh , Peter Weilbacher , Martin Wendt , Lutz Wisotzki , Bin Yang

1 CRAL - Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon
2 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
3 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation
4 ObAS - Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg
5 LUPM - Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier
6 UTINAM - Univers, Transport, Interfaces, Nanostructures, Atmosphère et environnement, Molécules (UMR 6213)

We present the concept of BlueMUSE, a blue-optimised, medium spectral resolution, panoramic integral field spectrograph based on the MUSE concept and proposed for the Very Large Telescope. With an optimised transmission down to 350 nm, a larger FoV (1.4 x 1.4 arcmin$^2$) and a higher spectral resolution compared to MUSE, BlueMUSE will open up a new range of galactic and extragalactic science cases allowed by its specific capabilities, beyond those possible with MUSE. For example a survey of massive stars in our galaxy and the Local Group will increase the known population of massive stars by a factor $>$100, to answer key questions about their evolution. Deep field observations with BlueMUSE will also significantly increase samples of Lyman-alpha emitters, spanning the era of Cosmic Noon. This will revolutionise the study of the distant Universe: allowing the intergalactic medium to be detected unambiguously in emission, enabling the study of the exchange of baryons between galaxies and their surroundings. By 2030, at a time when the focus of most of the new large facilities (ELT, JWST) will be on the infra-red, BlueMUSE will be a unique facility, outperforming any ELT instrument in the Blue/UV. It will have a strong synergy with ELT, JWST as well as ALMA, SKA, Euclid and Athena.

Domaines: Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Johan Richard, Roland Bacon, Jérémy Blaizot, Samuel Boissier, Alessandro Boselli, et al.. BlueMUSE: Project Overview and Science Cases. 2019. ⟨hal-02172602⟩