On January 28 this year, the mainland's "2021 China's Aerospace" white paper was released, pointing out that in the next five years, space science research will deepen basic theoretical research around scientific themes such as the origin and evolution of the universe and the relationship between the solar system and human beings, demonstrate and carry out space science plans, and incubate major space science research results. It is said that in the next 5 years, the continent will develop high-end astronomical observation equipment such as space gravitational wave detection satellites, Einstein probes, advanced space-based solar observatories and other scientific themes such as extreme universes, space-time ripples, solar and earth panoramas, and habitable planets.
The official name of the "Einstein probe" is actually "gravitational wave burst high-energy electromagnetic counterpart all-day monitor", referred to as GECAM, through its name can also be seen that it is mainly used to detect gravitational waves and high-energy rays of a device, in fact, the mainland has previously manufactured this "celestial artifact", and launched it into space, on December 10, 2020, the mainland in the Xichang Satellite Launch Center with the Long March 11 Yaojiu solid carrier rocket to launch it into the air, The satellite soon entered its intended orbit and began to work, and has made many observations in more than a year.
The "Einstein Probe" satellite has a large instantaneous field of view, medium spatial resolution and a certain spectral resolution, and its monitor for the first time adopts an X-ray focused imaging optical system based on MPO lobster eye technology, which can detect changes in high-energy X-ray transient sources, upheaval sources and monitor X-ray sources in the soft X-ray (0.5~4keV) band, and its sky-finding capture ability and detection sensitivity have reached the international leading position.
It's called the "Einstein Probe" because it can effectively test the two predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity— black holes and gravitational waves, so what can it do? Taken together, it can find "silent black holes ( meaning black holes without long-term radiation production ) at almost all mass scales by capturing the X-ray transient signals generated by black holes" that means that its super vision can make almost all types of black holes appear.
Most black holes in the universe are difficult to observe, but when more matter approaches and intrudes into the event horizon of the black hole, the strong gravitational force will cause the matter to split into particle states and produce friction or collision to emit light, which is also the existence of quasars. But at the poles of the black hole, some of the material will also be released by the black hole in the form of rays, forming a "relativistic jet", and when these two phenomena occur, the Einstein probe will be able to detect the existence of the black hole and observe information about it. To put it bluntly, the Einstein probe is a weapon for discovering hidden black holes, as long as the black hole has the action of adsorbing matter and releasing rays, it will be invisible in front of it.
Einstein probe is also an important gravitational wave detection equipment, it can be combined with the second generation of gravitational wave detection equipment in the world, detect the electromagnetic wave counterpart of the gravitational wave burst source and accurately locate it, and realize the observation of the merger or explosion of black holes, neutron stars and white dwarf stars. However, this time, the "2021 China Aerospace White Paper" said that in the next five years, the mainland will develop Einstein probes, indicating that the mainland will build a new generation of such equipment, and it is certain that the technology is more advanced, the functions are more comprehensive, and the accuracy is higher.
In short, the Einstein probe can carry out highly sensitive large field of view time-domain X-ray monitoring to achieve all-day sky survey monitoring of weak and distant high-energy ray transient sources, and time-varying sky survey monitoring of large sample X-ray sources. The target objects it can observe include black holes of almost all scales (galactic black holes and stellar black holes), electromagnetic wave counterparts of gravitational wave sources (black holes or neutron stars, collisions of white dwarfs), supernova shock bursts (supernova explosion gamma-ray bursts), active galactic nuclei (black holes or quasars at the center of galaxies), and others such as neutron stars, X-ray flashes, gamma-ray bursts and coronal activity can also be observed.
Therefore, Einstein probe is also an important astronomical observation equipment, astrophysics and high-energy physics research has an important help, through its observational data analysis, scientists will be able to explore whether black holes are ubiquitous in the universe, and carefully observe the origin and physical processes of gravitational wave bursts, etc., its observation data will involve most of the astrophysics branches, it is expected that it will have an important international impact on astrophysics research, let us look forward to its excellent performance.
Resources:
Beijing Daily January 28, 2022 article "In the next five years, China will develop space gravitational wave detection satellites and Einstein probes"
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