Description
Organisers: Norman Khan, Erwan Quintin, Robbie Webbe, Hui Yang
The X-ray observatories XMM-Newton and Chandra were both launched in 1999, and have been observing near continuously in the 25 years since. Their ability to complement each other has allowed the community to study the X-ray Universe in great detail. In concert with other X-ray instruments, and those in other bands too, the two together have helped to drive X-ray astronomy forward in leaps and bounds over the last two and a half decades.
In this milestone year this session aims to explore what can be, and has already been, achieved with this wealth of information, including the science products and source catalogues, combined containing more than 1,000,000 sources. Once combined with the observations of other instruments like Swift (which celebrates its own 20th anniversary in 2024), RXTE, eROSITA, etc., the community has access to more than half a century of observations of the soft X-ray sky. This session will showcase research that has been conducted using these vast archives, be it population studies, using advances in AI to mine for previously undiscovered phenomena, or developing tools to support the next generation of observatories. We will also bring together experts to discuss new ways in which they can be further exploited to brighten the future of X-ray astronomy.
With the next planned X-ray observatory, Athena, still at least a decade away, and AXIS and others still awaiting adoption, leveraging the results of XMM-Newton, Chandra, and others to maintain a vibrant X-ray community has never been more important.
XMM-Newton has now been surveying the X-ray, ultra-violet and optical sky for 25 years. During this presentation I will talk about the data reduction and analysis software, the Science Analysis System (SAS) and automated pipeline processing of the data, along with recent improvements that have been implemented to maximise the science return of XMM-Newton and provide alerts for newly detected...
We present a novel representation learning method for downstream tasks like anomaly detection or unsupervised classification in high-energy datasets. This enabled the discovery of a new extragalactic fast X-ray transient (FXT) in Chandra archival data, XRT 200515, a needle-in-the-haystack event and the first Chandra FXT of its kind. Recent serendipitous discoveries in X-ray astronomy,...
The co-evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and galaxies can be effectively constrained through sample-based analyses of the galactic correlates of long-term SMBH growth. Relevant correlates include stellar mass (M$_*$), star formation rate (SFR), and compactness. The sample-averaged SMBH accretion rate (BHAR), which constrains long-term SMBH growth in galaxy populations of interest,...
The first eROSITA All-Sky Survey (eRASS-1) yielded a wealth of galaxy clusters across the sky. With the public release of this data in February 2024, the need for tools to automate and streamline large sample analysis became imperative. We present a sample of approximately 100 galaxy clusters detected by the Dark Energy Surveyโs (DES) redMaPPer algorithm, eROSITA source detection, and in XMM...
The international gamma-ray astrophysics laboratory, INTEGRAL, was launched in October 2002 and collected science data continuously for 22.2 years until March 2025. The traditional data storage and distribution archive was operated by the ISDC in Geneva throughout the mission's lifetime. The INTEGRAL Science Legacy Archive, ISLA, was beta released at the October 2024 INTEGRAL workshop, and now...
NewAthena will be the European Space Agencyโs next large X-ray observatory, planned for launch in 2037. It will have revolutionary capabilities enabled by the combination of a lightweight large collecting-area mirror, a high-resolution spatially resolved X-ray integral-field spectrometer, and a wide-field X-ray imager. This next-generation observatory will thus enable transformational progress...
Abell 2219 (z = 0.225) is only the second galaxy cluster merger where both the forward and reverse shock fronts are identified with X-ray temperature and density measurements and one of only a handful with any shock fronts unambiguous detected as both temperature and density discontinuities. The reason for this rarity is the requirement of a near plane-of-sky merger, to mitigate the effects of...
The X-ray Cluster Survey (XCS) has analysed the entire XMM public archive with the primary aim of producing a large catalogue of X-ray selected clusters. To date, ~1000s of extended sources have been identified as clusters of galaxies, many of which have associated optical information. In this talk, I will outline the combination of XCS data and clusters detected in the Dark Energy Survey...
A critical prerequisite for both AGN activity, and the formation of new stars in host galaxies, is the availability of gas. Environmental processes in dense environments affect gas reservoirs in ways that are different to the field.ย The density of cluster members and their relative velocities also depend on the cluster mass. As such, the rates of violent processes will differ in clusters and...
