Related papers: Scientific Productivity with X-ray All-Sky Monitor…
X-ray devices are far superior to optical ones for providing nanometre spatial and attosecond temporal resolutions. Such resolution is indispensable in biology, medicine, physics, material sciences, and their applications. A bright…
Locating sources on the sky is one of the largest challenges in gravitational wave astronomy, owing to the omni-directional nature of gravitational wave detection techniques, and the often intrinsically weak signals being observed.…
X-ray polarimetry offers a unique window into neutron star physics and can provide answers to questions that cannot otherwise be probed. The up-and-coming REDSoX sounding rocket mission will be the first experiment equipped with a detector…
X-ray astronomy needs to set bold, science driven goals for the next decade. Only with defined science goals can we know what to work on, and a funding agency appreciate the need for significant technology developments. To be a forefront…
Was the Milky Way galaxy a low-luminosity active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the past? Can we find traces of remnant structures supporting this idea? What is the three-dimensional arrangement of matter around our central supermassive black…
X-rays provide one of the few bands through which we can study the epoch of reionization, when the first galaxies, black holes and stars were born. To reach the sensitivity required to image these first discrete objects in the universe…
All but a few digital computers used for scientific computations have supported floating-point and digital arithmetic of rather limited numerical precision. The underlying assumptions were that the systems being studied were basically…
In this speculative, millenial essay, I try to anticipate what sort of novel gravitational optics investigations might be observed, after it becomes possible to map and monitor roughly a trillion sources (of which a billion may be usefully…
We discuss here the main goals and some interesting results of the "XMM-Newton Bright Serendipitous Survey", a research program conducted by the XMM-Newton Survey Science Center in two complementary energy bands (0.5-4.5 keV and 4.5-7.5…
Gravitational-wave radiometry is a powerful tool by which weak signals with unknown signal morphologies are recovered through a process of cross correlation. Radiometry has been used, e.g., to search for persistent signals from known…
Laser-based sources of ionizing radiation have attracted a considerable attention in the last years for their broad potential applications. However the stability and robustness of such sources is still an issue that needs to be addressed.…
We present light curves of a sample of "transient" sources observed with the All-Sky Monitor (ASM) of the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The light curves extend over 3.5 years. They are presented in three groups: six neutron-star…
The Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) is one of the three instruments on board EXIST, a multi-wavelength observatory in charge of performing a global survey of the sky in hard X-rays searching for Super-massive Black Holes (Grindlay & Natalucci,…
The study of astronomical transients at high energies provides insights into some of the most extreme physical events in the universe; however, carrying out their detection and fast follow-up studies are limited by instrumental constraints.…
In the last decade, it has been possible to monitor variable X-ray sources in nearby galaxies. In particular, since the launch of Chandra, M31 has been regularly observed. It is perhaps the only nearby galaxy which is observed by an X-ray…
We describe a concept for a NASA SMEX Mission in which Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) detectors, developed at CERN, are adapted for use in X-ray astronomy. These detectors can be used to obtain moderately large detector area and…
All sciences, including astronomy, are now entering the era of information abundance. The exponentially increasing volume and complexity of modern data sets promises to transform the scientific practice, but also poses a number of common…
Sensitive, wide-area X-ray surveys which would be possible with the WFXT will detect huge samples of virialized objects spanning the mass range from sub-groups to the most massive clusters, and extending in redshift to beyond z=2. These…
We developed an instrument design capable of measuring linear X-ray polarization over a broad-band using conventional spectroscopic optics. A set of multilayer-coated flats reflects the dispersed X-rays to the instrument detectors. The…
Cosmic ray astronomy attempts to identify and study the sources of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays. It is unique in its reliance on charged particles as the information carriers. While no discrete source of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays has…