Looking Deep Into (and sometimes through) the Galaxy with INTEGRAL, Chandra, and NuSTAR
John Tomsick
University of California at Berkeley
Hard X-ray observations uncover extreme processes that are occurring in
our Galaxy. These processes can be related to accretion of matter onto
compact objects, the conversion of spin or magnetic energy into radiation,
acceleration of electrons in shocks, and emission from nuclear decays. Hard
X-ray surveys above 10 keV provide a relatively unbiased view of the
source populations in the Galaxy because the levels of interstellar
absorption are very low at such energies. For nearly a decade, the
INTEGRAL satellite has been uncovering new hard X-ray sources. However,
the positional accuracy obtained by INTEGRAL is not nearly good enough to
obtain unique multi-wavelength identifications of sources in the crowded
Galactic Plane. Thus, over the past several years, we have been following
up INTEGRAL detections with the Chandra X-ray Observatory to determine the
nature of these sources. We have identified a large number of them, and
I will describe our methods and present our results for some of the more
interesting cases. This topic is timely because of the upcoming launch
of the NuSTAR hard X-ray satellite, which will provide a huge advance
in sensitivity and angular resolution over INTEGRAL. I will also discuss
some of the science that we expect the NuSTAR capabilities to enable.
Date: | Tuesday, 27 March 2012 |
Time: | 16:00 |
Where: | McGill University |
| Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, R.E. Bell Conference Room (room 103) |
Contact: | Robert Rutledge |
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