Neutron star interior composition explorer (NICE) the nicer mission, in development for launch in late 2016, will observe a number of neutron STARS to measure the neutron star radius and compactness…

This federal contract award, valued at $472,898.00, was issued by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the University of Arizona to support the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) mission. NICER is a space-based observatory that will study the radius and compactness of neutron stars with high precision. The award does not have a set-aside designation. The University of Arizona, as the prime contractor, will use advanced modeling techniques to analyze data collected by NICER in order to obtain key measurements about the interior composition of neutron stars. This research effort is part of NASA's broader NICER program, which aims to advance our understanding of these exotic celestial objects. The University of Arizona, as a public research institution, has extensive expertise in astrophysics and will leverage its capabilities to support this important NASA mission.

Neutron star interior composition explorer (NICE) the nicer mission, in development for launch in late 2016, will observe a number of neutron STARS to measure the neutron star radius and compactness with 5% precision. In particular, IT will target several rotation powered millisecond pulsars and accreting neutron STARS that show thermonuclear bursts in the soft X-RAY band in order to obtain high signal--to--noise and high timing and energy resolution lightcurves from these targets. The technique IT will employ for the radius measurement is frequently referred to as waveform modeling, in which the shapes of the flux modulations arising from hotspots on the neutron star surface are modeled by sophisticated techniques that take into account the general relativistic light bending around the neutron star as well the properties of the emission from the surface in order to extract the neutron star parameters of interest.