SYNERGY: An Explorer mission concept for a next-generation ultraviolet survey

摘要

Synergy is an Explorer class mission concept to obtain a large-area, multi-tier near-ultraviolet sky survey with low-resolution, spatially resolved slitless spectroscopy (R = 200-600) and simultaneous arc-second imaging between 210-320 nra. It's Wide and Deep surveys will examine the co-evolution of more than 200 million galaxies, 500,000 AGN, and 30,000 gas halos between 0.8 < z < 2 to constrain the multi-parameter physical relationships between gas, star formation history, mergers, AGN, and environment at the epoch when star formation peaked, half of galaxies transitioned from star-forming to passive, and the Hubble sequence first emerged. Many facilities in the 2020s will probe galaxies at this epoch, but the key tracers of diffuse gas over the 10 Gyr of cosmic time since z = 2 require ultraviolet observations.