Comments on the case for high time resolution science
Mike Redfern Mon, 28 Apr 2003
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It is a new, and not mature, field so we are just now finding out about things.
There is a considerable community and I suggest that we should generate the 
science case that you need - this includes

myself and others here in Galway
Harlaftis in Athens
Phil Charles et al in Soton
Stefan Wagner in Heidleberg
Dainis Dravins in Lund
Vik Dhillon in Sheffield
Gottfried Kanbach in MPI
Christian Gouiffes in Saclay

The evidence is that some classes of object are variable on every
timescale (i.e. there is no characteristic timescale apparent, new
information is available on every timescale, and the shortest
timescales have been limited by photon statistics/SNR considerations)
- variablity is apparent in flux, spectrum & polarisation These
include some types of AGNs, compact objects (inner accretion disk and
magnetospheric emssion), and many others

In addition, very large photon fluxes may allow high order
correlations to be investigated - in this respect ELTs may be millions
of times better than current telescopes

Please come back to me if you want me to nominate members of this
group to generate what you need.

Mike


Professor Michael Redfern
Physics Department
National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
+353 91 524411x2717 (fax) +353 91 750584
+353 87 8071426 (mobile)