Program

Tuesday, May 15th, 2018: Pratt Conference Room
9:00-12:15
Brief Introductions
Thomas Dauser/Joern Wilms: General Overview of the SIXTE Design
Practical: Point Source Simulations
12:15pm-1:00
Lunch
1:00-1:30
Randall Smith: SIMX Software Talk
1:30-5:30
Practical: Point Source Simulations, Multiple Point Sources, Variability
(examples: eROSITA, Athena WFI, Athena X-IFU)
Wednesday, May 16th, 2018: Pratt Conference Room
9:00-12:15
Thomas Dauser: Simulating Extended Sources
Joern Wilms: Specifying Imaging Detectors for SIXTE
Joern Wilms: Arcus & SIXTE
Thomas Dauser/Joern Wilms: Simulating Transition Edge Sensors/Calorimetry
12:15pm-1:00
Lunch
1:00-1:30
John ZuHone (CfA)
SX-ray Mocks from 2D and 3D Data Using pyXSIM and SOXS
Mock observations make a vital link between numerical simulations of astrophysical objects and observations. These include simulating projection effects, radiative processes, contaminating backgrounds and foregrounds, and instrumental responses. I will discuss two software packages I have developed, pyXSIM and SOXS, which produce simulated observations of X-ray sources from 2D and 3D models, including those from hydrodynamical and other simulations. The latter package, SOXS, is capable of simulating the spectral and imaging responses of a wide variety of X-ray instruments, including those of Athena and particularly Lynx. SOXS also has support for generating realistic point-source and cosmological backgrounds for observations. Both packages use the SIMPUT file format for internal use and for interoperability with other packages. This software is written in Python, open-source, and hosted on Github. I will describe these two packages and applications of their use.
1:30-5:30
Practical: Extended Sources, Mosaics
Practical: High Resolution Spectroscopy
6:30pm
Conference Dinner
Thursday, May 17th, 2018: Phillips Auditorium
9:00-9:10
Charles Alcock (CfA
Opening Welcome
9:10-9:35
Joern Wilms (University of Erlangen-Nüremberg)
Athena Overview & Status
9:35-10:00
Randall Smith (CfA)
An Overview of The Soft X-ray Grating Explorer
The Arcus MIDEX Explorer, which NASA selected for a Phase A study in August 2017, provides high-resolution soft X-ray spectroscopy in the 12-50Å bandpass with unprecedented sensitivity. Its capabilities include spectral resolution >2500 and effective areas in the range 200-400 cm^2. The three top science goals for Arcus are (1) to measure the effects of structure formation imprinted upon the hot baryons that are predicted to lie in extended halos around galaxies, groups, and clusters, (2) to trace the propagation of outflowing mass, energy, and momentum from the vicinity of the black hole to extragalactic scales as a measure of their feedback and (3) to explore how stars, circumstellar disks and exoplanet atmospheres form and evolve. Arcus relies upon the same 12m focal length grazing-incidence silicon pore X-ray optics (SPO) that ESA has developed for the Athena mission; the focal length is achieved on orbit via an extendable optical bench. The focused X-rays from these optics are diffracted by high-efficiency Critical-Angle Transmission (CAT) gratings, and the results are imaged with flight-proven CCD detectors and electronics. The power and telemetry requirements on the spacecraft are modest and mission operations are straightforward, as most observations will be long (~100 ksec), uninterrupted, and pre-planned.
10:00-10:25
Herman Marshall (MIT)
The Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer
I will provide an overview of an approved NASA astrophysics mission called IXPE, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, scheduled for launch in 2021. IXPE will obtain X-ray polarization measurements for a wide variety of astrophysical objects. While many targets will be point-like, such as most active galaxies, X-ray binaries in the Galaxy, and isolated neutron stars, others will be resolved, such as scattering clouds, supernova remnants, and pulsar wind nebulae. I will present results of an IXPE simulator for the nearby active galaxy, Cen A. With the imaging capability of IXPE, we can separately measure the polarization along the jet in order to determine if the X-ray emission is predominantly synchrotron emission and how the magnetic field is oriented in the regions where X-rays are produced.
10:25-10:50
Scott Porter (NASA GSFC)
An Overview and Status of XARM
The X-ray Astrophysics Recovery Mission (XARM) will build off the very short, but tantalizingly successful, Hitomi mission by rebuilding the soft x-ray spectrometer and the soft x-ray imaging telescopes. These instruments performed extremely well on the Hitomi mission yielding more than two dozen science papers from essentially 30 days of observations, and with the instruments not yet fully operational. The intent of XARM is to rebuild just these two instruments on a smaller platform and to launch them as-soon-as-possible to complete the science program of the Hitomi mission. To do this, the instruments will be largely build-to-print where only areas of high-risk will be further addressed. Much of the hardware is currently in production, the satellite vendor is under contract, and the high-level schedule complete. The XARM launch date is currently under negotiation but will likely be in early 2022. Here we will discuss the overall mission capabilities, the continuing need for modeling and laboratory astrophysics measurements, and an approximate schedule for resuming observations.
10:50-11:15
Coffee Break
11:15-11:40
Antara Basu Zych (NASA GSFC)
Next-generation X-ray surveys: eROSITA and Athena WFI
Deep X-ray surveys have revealed that galaxies overtake other sources of X-ray emission, such as AGN, at the faintest limits (S (0.5-2keV) <~ 3 e -18 erg/s/cm^2). While upcoming future X-ray surveys like eROSITA and Athena WFI will not survey down to these sensitivity limits, we do expect that X-ray emission from normal (i.e., not AGN) galaxies will contribute to the numbers of detected sources. Using existing multiwavelength surveys, we can predict what we expect to observe in these wide-field X-ray surveys. In this talk, I will briefly present the status of current X-ray surveys and put next-generation X-ray surveys into context in terms of key parameters such as X-ray flux and solid angle surveyed.
11:40-12:05pm
Joe Hora (CfA)
Synergies with IR
I will present recent research showing the synergies between IR and X-ray observations with Spitzer and Chandra, and discuss possible future applications with the next generation of IR and X-ray observatories and instruments.
12:05-12:30
Mike Eracleous (PSU)
Synergies Between LISA and Upcoming X-Ray Observatories
We expect that in less than two decades from now LISA will become operational and will provides us our first view of astronomical objects in the low-frequency gravitational wave band, i.e., at frequencies of a few to a few tens of milli-Hz. I will discuss how the observation of gravitational waves from a few classes of sources will give us information that we cannot otherwise get and emphasize how gravitational wave and X-ray observations will complement each other. I will pay particular attention to the following types of systems: (a) binary (and possibly interacting) white dwarfs, which are laboratories for accretion physics and candidate progenitors of type Ia SNe, (b) binary supermassive black holes, which are the endpoints of galaxy mergers and provide tests of galaxy evolution scenarios and stellar and gas dynamics in the mergers, and (c) the disruption of white dwarfs by intermediate mass black holes, which yields constraints on the properties of the white dwarfs and the population of intermediate mass black holes.
12:30-1:30
Lunch
1:35-1:55
Alexey Vihlinin (CfA)
An Overview of Lynx
1:55-2:20
David Barnes (MIT)
Exploring synergies between simulations and observations with IllustrisTNG
Forming from the largest primordial density fluctuations, galaxy clusters are a sensitive probe of the underlying cosmology. However, during their formation the cluster environment is continually shaped by energetic astrophysical processes, like feedback from supernovae and active galactic nuclei. Therefore, their observable properties are a convolution of cosmology and astrophysics. To better understand the systematics and to realize the potential of future X-ray missions that will observe the formation of clusters over 10 Gyrs of cosmic time, like XARM, Athena and Lynx, we require detailed hydrodynamical simulations that yield populations of realistic clusters. In this talk, I will explore the natural synergies that exist between simulations and observations using the IllustrisTNG simulations. I will demonstrate the need to create mock observables and the observable systematics they highlight. I will then explore the metallicity of the ICM, demonstrating that IllustrisTNG reproduces the observed radial metal distribution in the ICM and supports the early enrichment scenario. Finally, I will examine the formation and destruction of cool-cores in the simulated clusters, comparing the cool-core fraction and its evolution with redshift to unbiased observational samples. Comparison of simulations and observations highlight differences in how numerical and real astrophysical processes shape the ICM.
2:20-2:45
Andy Szentgyorgi (CfA)
GMT Status Update and Potential Synergies with X-rays
The GMT is expected go see first light in late 2024. In this talk I will describe the capabilities at the start of science operations and the phased program to add instrumentation and capability. I will describe the five and 1/2 first-light instruments and provide a status.
2:45-3:10
Tony Stark (CfA)
Synergies with SZ Telescopes
It was only a decade ago that a cluster of galaxies was first discovered by detection of its Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect; more than 700 clusters have been so discovered to date. The currently-operational cosmic microwave background instruments will detect thousands more, particularly at high redshift and with masses as small as 10^14 Msolar. The southern sky is well covered, but the far north not at all. Lensing of the cosmic microwave background by some individual galaxy clusters will be observable and will yield a measuremnt of cluster mass that is complementary to measurements by weak lensing in the optical and to B-mode polarization tomography. A proposal for a new generation of "CMB Stage 4" instruments is in development.
3:10-3:20
Closing Remarks
4:00-5:00
CfA Colloquium: Alan Rogers (MIT/Haystack Observatory)
Friday, May 18th, 2018: Pratt Conference Room
9:00-12:00pm
Practical: TBD