Science with KRAKENS

Abstract

The Keck science community is entering an era of unprecedented change. Powerful new instrument like ZTF, JWST, LSST, and the ELTs will catalyze this change, and we must be ready to take full advantage to maintain our position of scientific leadership. The best way to do this is to continue the UC and Caltech tradition of technical excellence in instrumentation. In this whitepaper we describe a new instrument called KRAKENS to help meet these challenges. KRAKENS uses a unique detector technology (MKIDs) to enable groundbreaking science across a wide range of astrophysical research topics. This document will lay out the detailed expected science return of KRAKENS.