The FLARE mission: Deep and Wide-field 1-5$\mu$m Imaging and Spectroscopy for the Early Universe: a proposal for M5 Cosmic Vision call

TL;DR

FLARE is a proposed space mission aiming to study early galaxies before reionization up to z=15, with wide-field imaging and spectroscopy to advance understanding of the universe's origins and star formation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel space-based wide-field imaging and integral-field spectroscopy system optimized for early universe galaxy detection, surpassing current ground-based capabilities.

Findings

Designed to detect galaxies up to z=15 with AB magnitude 28

Simultaneous imaging and spectroscopy over wide fields

Expected to provide new insights into early universe and star formation

Abstract

FLARE (First Light And Reionization Explorer) is a space mission that will be submitted to ESA (M5 call). Its primary goal (about 80% of lifetime) is to identify and study galaxies that dwell in the universe before the end of the reionization up to about z = 15, a redshift that might not be statistically reachable for JWST, Euclid and WFIRST. A secondary objective (about 20% of lifetime) is to survey star formation in the Milky Way. The strategy selected for FLARE optimizes the science return: imaging and spectroscopic integral-field observations will be carried out simultaneously on two parallel focal planes and over very wide instantaneous fields of view. FLARE will feature an instantaneous field of view of about 0.2 deg$^2$ with 0.2-arcsec pixels and an instantaneous integral-field spectroscopic field of view of about 1 arcmin$^2$ with R = 500 - 1000 and an angular resolution of about 0.4 arcsec. To detect first-light galaxies, the imaging and spectroscopic survey (parallel observations over about 6 years) will reach m$_{AB}$ = 28 and f$_{\lambda}$ = 10$^{-18}$ erg/cm$^2$/S. FLARE will help addressing two of ESA's Cosmic Vision themes: a) "How did the universe originate and what is it made of?" and b) "What are the conditions for planet formation and the emergence of life?" and more specifically, "From gas and dust to stars and planets". FLARE will provide to the ESA community a leading position to statistically study the early universe after JWST's deep but pin-hole surveys. Moreover, the instrumental development of wide-field imaging and wide-field integral-field spectroscopy in space will be a major breakthrough after making them available on ground-based telescopes.