Related papers: Resolving the extragalactic hard X-ray background
The latest all-sky survey in hard X-ray band was performed by the HEAO-1 satellite (13-80 keV) with an angular resolution of 24x48 arcmin. A diffuse hard X-Ray background (HXB) was detected between 3 and 50 keV. The main scientific goal of…
A complete sample of 60 serendipitous hard X-ray sources with flux in the range $\sim 1 \times 10^{-13}$ \ecs to $\sim 4 \times 10^{-12}$ \ecs (2 - 10 keV), detected in 87 ASCA GIS2 images, was recently presented in literature. Using this…
The origin of the extragalactic $\gamma$-ray background permeating throughout the Universe remains a mystery forty years after its discovery. The extrapolated population of blazars can account for only half of the background radiation at…
In this concluding part of the series of three papers dedicated to the Swift/BAT hard X-ray survey (BXS), we focus on the X-ray spectral analysis and statistical properties of the source sample. Using a dedicated method to extract…
The X-ray sky is not as well known as is sometimes thought. We report on our search of minority populations (Kim & Elvis 1999). One of the most intriguing is that of `blank field sources', i.e. bright ROSAT sources (F(X)>1e-13 erg/cm2/s)…
We present observations in the 0.1-100 keV spectral band of 8 Seyfert 2 galaxies, obtained by means of BeppoSAX. These sources were selected according to their [OIII] optical emission line flux, to avoid biases against obscuration on the pc…
We extend our earlier work on X-ray source stacking in the deep XMM-Newton observation of the Lockman Hole, to the 2 Ms Chandra Deep Field North and the 1 Ms Chandra Deep Field South. The XMM-Newton work showed the resolved fraction of the…
A soft X-ray excess has been claimed to exist in and around a number of galaxy clusters and this emission has been attributed to the warm-hot intergalactic medium that may constitute most of the baryons in the local universe. We have…
The Serendipitous Extragalactic X-ray Source Identification (SEXSI) Program is designed to extend greatly the sample of identified extragalactic hard X-ray 2-10 keV sources at intermediate fluxes ($\sim 10^{-13} - 10^{-15} erg/cm2/s$).…
The origin of the hard X-ray background (XRB) as a superposition of unabsorbed and absorbed Active Galactic Nuclei is now widely accepted as the standard model. The identification of faint X-ray sources in ROSAT, ASCA, and BeppoSAX…
We analyze 18 sources that were found to show interesting properties of periodicity, very soft spectra and/or large long-term variability in X-rays in our project of classification of sources from the 2XMMi-DR3 catalog but were poorly…
We have been carrying out a successful observational programme targeted at finding the highly obscured quasars that are thought to be the main contributors to the hard X-ray background. Out of 56 sources so far studied with optical and…
We propose a model for the source of the X-ray background (XRB) in which low luminosity active nuclei (L<10^43 erg/s) are obscured by nuclear starbursts within the inner 100pc. The obscuring material covers most of the sky as seen from the…
Most of the energy of the X-ray background is contributed by sources with a hard X-ray spectrum, harder than the spectrum observed in nearby type 1 AGNs. The hard background contributors are conventionally identified with type 2 AGNs,…
We present a new method for determining the sensitivity of X-ray imaging observations, which correctly accounts for the observational biases that affect the probability of detecting a source of a given X-ray flux, without the need to…
It is assumed that the unresolved fraction of the X-ray background (XRB) consists of a truly diffuse component and a population of the weak sources below the present detection threshold. Albeit these weak sources are not observed directly,…
We present an analysis of the spectral properties of the peculiar X-ray pulsar X Per based on INTEGRAL observations. We show that the source exhibits an unusually hard spectrum and is confidently detected by ISGRI up to more than 100 keV.…
We analyse very deep X-ray and mid-IR surveys in common areas of the Lockman Hole and the HDF North to study the sources of the X-ray background (XRB) and to test the standard obscured accretion paradigm. We detect with ISO a rich…
Here is reviewed our current understanding of Galactic and extragalactic diffuse gamma-ray emission. The spectrum of the extragalactic gamma-ray background above 30 MeV can be well described by a power law with photon index s=2.1. In the…
We present the results of a detailed spectral analysis of optically faint hard X-ray sources in the Chandra deep fields selected on the basis of their high X-ray to optical flux ratio (X/O). The stacked spectra of high X/O sources in both…