Related papers: Confusion of Diffuse Objects in the X-ray Sky
The relic abundance of baryons - the only form of stable matter whose existence we are certain of - is a crucial parameter for many cosmological processes, as well as material evidence that there is new physics beyond the Standard Model. We…
The propagation of gamma-rays over cosmological distances is the subject of extensive theoretical and observational research at GeV and TeV energies. The mean free path of gamma-rays in the cosmic web is limited above 100 GeV due to the…
We present a study of the hot gas and stellar content of 5 optically-selected poor galaxy clusters, including a full accounting of the contribution from intracluster light (ICL) and a combined hot gas and hydrostatic X-ray mass analysis…
High-spectral resolution observations of clusters of galaxies are a powerful tool to understand the physical processes taking place in these massive objects. Their hot multi-million-degree X-ray emitting cluster atmospheres, containing most…
We make an inventory of the baryonic and gravitating mass in structures ranging from the smallest galaxies to rich clusters of galaxies. We find that the fraction of baryons converted to stars reaches a maximum between M500 = 1E12 and 1E13…
We present an X-ray image deprojection analysis of Einstein Observatory imaging data on 207, clusters of galaxies. The resulting radial profiles for luminosity, temperature, and electron density variations are determined from the cluster…
A set of diffuse interstellar clouds in the inner Galaxy within a few hundred pc of the Galactic plane has been observed at an angular resolution of ~1 arcmin combining data from the NRAO Green Bank Telescope and the Very Large Array. At…
Several recent studies used the hot gas fraction of galaxy clusters as a standard ruler to constrain dark energy, which provides competitive results compared to other techniques. This method, however, relies on the assumption that the…
We investigate the properties of the environment around 20 powerful radio galaxies and quasars at redshifts between 0.45 and 1. Using XMM-Newton and Chandra observations we probe the spatial distribution and the temperature of the cluster…
Recent time-resolved spectral studies of a few Active Galactic Nuclei in hard X-rays revealed occultations of the X-ray primary source probably by Broad Line Region (BLR) clouds. An important open question on the structure of the…
According to recent models, gamma-ray bursts apparently explode in a wide variety of ambient densities ranging from ~ 10^{-3} to 30 cm^{-3}. The lowest density environments seem, at first sight, to be incompatible with bursts in or near…
The Hot Universe Baryon Surveyor (HUBS) mission is proposed to study "missing" baryons in the universe. Unlike dark matter, baryonic matter is made of elements in the periodic table, and can be directly observed through the electromagnetic…
We have analyzed X-ray spectra from six galaxy clusters which contain cooling flows: A85, A478, A1795, A2142, A2147, & A2199. The X-ray spectra were taken with the HEAO1-A2 Medium and High Energy Detectors and the Einstein Solid State…
We present the diffuse X-ray emission identified in Chandra observations of the young, massive Galactic star cluster Westerlund 1. After removing point-like X-ray sources down to a completeness limit of 2e31 erg/s, we identify 3e34 erg/s…
Recent observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory have provided us with the capability to discriminate point sources, such as the supermassive black hole Sgr A*, from the diffuse emission within the inner 10'' of the Galaxy. The hot…
As the nodes of the cosmic web, clusters of galaxies trace the large-scale distribution of matter in the Universe. They are thus privileged sites in which to investigate the complex physics of structure formation. However, the complete…
We reassess constraints on the cosmological baryon density from observations of the mean decrement and power spectrum of the Lyman-alpha forest, taking into account uncertainties in all free parameters in the simplest gravitational…
Numerical simulations predict that a large number of baryons reside in intergalactic space at temperatures between 10^5-10^7 K. Highly-ionized metals, such as O VII and O VIII, are good tracers of this ``warm-hot intergalactic medium'', or…
We present an estimate of the global budget of baryons in all states, with conservative estimates of the uncertainties, based on all relevant information we have been able to marshal. Most of the baryons today are still in the form of…
In the Big Bang about 5% of the mass that was created was in the form of normal baryonic matter (neutrons and protons). Of this about 10% ended up in galaxies in the form of stars or of gas (that can be in molecules, can be atomic, or can…