Science objectives of the Einstein Probe mission
Creators: name: Yuan, Weimin
name: Dai, Lixin
name: Feng, Hua
name: Jin, Chichuan
name: Jonker, Peter
name: Kuulkers, Erik
name: Liu, Yuan
name: Nandra, Kirpal
name: O'Brien, Paul
name: Piro, Luigi
name: Rau, Arne
name: Rea, Nanda
name: Sanders, Jeremy
name: Tao, Lian
name: Wang, Junfeng
name: Wu, Xuefeng
name: Zhang, Bing
name: Zhang, Shuangnan
name: Ai, Shunke
name: Buchner, Johannes
name: Bulbul, Esra
name: Chen, Hechao
name: Chen, Minghua
name: Chen, Yong
name: Chen, Yu-Peng
name: Coleiro, Alexis
name: Zelati, Francesco Coti
name: Dai, Zigao
name: Fan, Xilong
name: Fan, Zhou
name: Friedrich, Susanne
name: Gao, He
name: Ge, Chong
name: Ge, Mingyu
name: Geng, Jinjun
name: Ghirlanda, Giancarlo
name: Gianfagna, Giulia
name: Gou, Lijun
name: Guillot, Sébastien
name: Hou, Xian
name: Hu, Jingwei
name: Huang, Yongfeng
name: Ji, Long
name: Jia, Shumei
name: Komossa, S.
name: Kong, Albert K. H.
name: Lan, Lin
name: Li, An
name: Li, Ang
name: Li, Chengkui
name: Li, Dongyue
name: Li, Jian
name: Li, Zhaosheng
name: Ling, Zhixing
name: Liu, Ang
name: Liu, Jinzhong
name: Liu, Liangduan
name: Liu, Zhu
name: Luo, Jiawei
name: Ma, Ruican
name: Maggi, Pierre
name: Maitra, Chandreyee
name: Marino, Alessio
name: Ng, Stephen Chi-Yung
name: Pan, Haiwu
name: Rukdee, Surangkhana
name: Soria, Roberto
name: Sun, Hui
name: Tam, Pak-Hin Thomas
name: Thakur, Aishwarya Linesh
name: Tian, Hui
name: Troja, Eleonora
name: Wang, Wei
name: Wang, Xiangyu
name: Wang, Yanan
name: Wei, Junjie
name: Wen, Sixiang
name: Wu, Jianfeng
name: Wu, Ting
name: Xiao, Di
name: Xu, Dong
name: Xu, Renxin
name: Xu, Yanjun
name: Xu, Yu
name: Yang, Haonan
name: You, Bei
name: Yu, Heng
name: Yu, Yunwei
name: Zhang, Binbin
name: Zhang, Chen
name: Zhang, Guobao
name: Zhang, Liang
name: Zhang, Wenda
name: Zhang, Yu
name: Zhou, Ping
name: Zou, Zecheng
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The Einstein Probe (EP) is an interdisciplinary mission of time-domain and X-ray astronomy. Equipped with a wide-field lobster-eye X-ray focusing imager, EP will discover cosmic X-ray transients and monitor the X-ray variability of known sources in 0.5-4 keV, at a combination of detecting sensitivity and cadence that is not accessible to the previous and current wide-field monitoring missions. EP can perform quick characterisation of transients or outbursts with a Wolter-I X-ray telescope onboard. In this paper, the science objectives of the Einstein Probe mission are presented. EP is expected to enlarge the sample of previously known or predicted but rare types of transients with a wide range of timescales. Among them, fast extragalactic transients will be surveyed systematically in soft X-rays, which include γ-ray bursts and their variants, supernova shock breakouts, and the predicted X-ray transients associated with binary neutron star mergers. EP will detect X-ray tidal disruption events and outbursts from active galactic nuclei, possibly at an early phase of the flares for some. EP will monitor the variability and outbursts of X-rays from white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes in our and neighbouring galaxies at flux levels fainter than those detectable by the current instruments, and is expected to discover new objects. A large sample of stellar X-ray flares will also be detected and characterised. In the era of multi-messenger astronomy, EP has the potential of detecting the possible X-ray counterparts of gravitational wave events, neutrino sources, and ultra-high energy γ-ray and cosmic ray sources. EP is expected to help advance the studies of extreme objects/phenomena and their underlying physical processes revealed in the dynamic X-ray universe, as well as studies in other areas of X-ray astronomy.
description: 67 pages, 24 figures, accepted for publication in SCIENCE CHINA Physics, Mechanics &amp; Astronomy