Related papers: Active X-ray Optics for Generation-X, the Next Hig…
X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) has been one of the most successful astronomy missions launched by the European Space Agency. It exploits innovative use of replication technology for the X-ray reflecting telescopes that has resulted…
The Chandra X-ray Observatory has completed a remarkable twenty years in orbit. A large part of the science program of Chandra during this time has involved the study of stars and their planetary systems. This primer aims to give the reader…
X-ray reflection generates much of the spectral complexity in the X-ray spectra of AGN. It is argued that strong relativistic blurring of the reflection spectrum should commonly be expected from objects accreting at a high Eddington rate.…
X-ray astronomy allows study of objects which may be associated with compact objects, i.e. neutron stars or black holes, and also may contain strong magnetic fields. Such objects are categorically non-spherical, and likely non-circular when…
The most obvious extragalactic targets for optical/infrared interferometers are Active Galactic Nuclei. In this document, I try to overview other topics that could be of interest to studies of galaxies and whether they could be adequate for…
X-ray polarimetry-timing is the characterization of rapid variability in the X-ray polarization degree and angle. As for the case of spectral-timing, it provides causal information valuable for reconstructing indirect maps of the vicinity…
Deep field observations are an essential tool to probe the cosmological evolution of galaxies. In this context, X-ray deep fields provide information about some of the most energetic cosmological objects: active galactic nuclei (AGN).…
Improvements in X-ray optics critically depend on the measurement of their optical performance. The knowledge of wavefront aberrations, for example, can be used to improve the fabrication of optical elements or to design phase correctors to…
X-ray astronomy is a mature area of observational astronomy. After the discovery of the first non-solar X-ray source in 1962, X-ray astronomy proliferated during the Apollo era's space race. Then, it matured as an established area of…
Over the decades, astronomical X-ray telescopes have utilized the Wolter type-1 optical design, which provides stigmatic imaging in axial direction but suffers from coma and higher-order aberrations for off-axis sources. The…
Recent adaptive optics systems in astronomy achieve high-angular resolution. With the extreme stability of the images, detection at very low fluxes can be reached using a coronograph at the diffraction limit of the telescopes. This paper is…
The great success of the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) has given us a new probe to study strong gravitational fields and to measure the physical properties of black holes and neutron stars. Here, we describe a "next-generation" x-ray…
The question of the X-ray background has been largely settled over the last 10 years using the ROSAT satellite. About 70-80 % of the soft X-ray background was resolved into discrete sources, which are mainly X-ray and optically unobscured…
Large X-ray observatories such as Chandra and XMM-Newton have been delivering scientific breakthroughs in research fields as diverse as our Solar System, the astrophysics of stars, stellar explosions and compact objects, accreting…
X-ray cluster measurements interpreted with a universal baryon/gas mass fraction can theoretically serve as a cosmological distance probe. We examine issues of cosmological sensitivity for current (e.g. Chandra X-ray Observatory,…
The advent of 4$^\text{th}$ generation high-energy synchrotron facilities (ESRF-EBS and the planned APS-U, PETRA-IV and SPring-8 II) and free-electron lasers (Eu-XFEL and SLAC) allied with the recent demonstration of high-quality free-form…
In astronomy there are basically four kinds of observations to extract the information carried by electromagnetic radiation: photometry, imaging, spectroscopy and polarimetry. By optimal exploitation of the first three techniques, X-ray…
Deep surveys of the cosmic X-ray background are reviewed in the context of observational progress enabled by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission-Newton. The sources found by deep surveys are described along with…
Developed right at the beginning of the space age in the 1940s, the proportional counter was the first detector used in X-ray astronomy and stayed its workhorse for almost four decades. Although the principle of such a detector seems to be…
Astronomers working with faint targets will benefit greatly from improved image quality on current and planned ground-based telescopes. At present, most adaptive optic systems are targeted at the highest resolution with bright guide stars.…