Science with IXO
Overview
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NOTE: In March 2011 ESA announced a new way forward for the L-class candidate missions: IXO, EJSM-Laplace and LISA. The ATHENA assessment study report (Yellow Book) is now available. |
The International X-ray Observatory (IXO) is a next-generation facility designed to address some of the most fundamental questions in contemporary astrophysics and cosmology. Building on the accumulated knowledge acquired by the current (and previous) X-ray facilities IXO will address these primary goals:
- Black holes and matter under extreme conditions
- Formation and evolution of galaxies, clusters and large scale structure
- Life cycles of matter and energy
IXO will provide the advances in X-ray imaging, timing and spectroscopy needed to address these goals.
The IXO optics will have 20 times more collecting area at 1 keV than any previous X-ray telescope. The focal plane instruments will deliver up to 100-fold increase in effective area for high resolution spectroscopy from 0.3-10 keV, deep spectral imaging from 0.2-40 keV over a wide field of view, unprecedented polarimetric sensitivity, and microsecond spectroscopic timing with high count rate capability.
IXO White Papers
A number of white papers have been prepared for the NASA Astro 2010 Decadal Review. The papers listed below are of particular relevance to IXO.
| IXO White Papers | ||
| Supermassive Black Hole Growth | ||
| Fundamental Accretion and Ejection Astrophysics | J. Miller et al. | pdf |
| Stellar-Mass Black Holes and Their Progenitors | J. Miller et al. | |
| The Growth of Supermassive Black Holes Over Cosmic Time | K. Nandra et al. | |
| Matter Orbiting a Black Hole | ||
| Spin and Relativistic Phenomena around Black Holes | L. Brenneman et al. | |
| Stellar-Mass Black Holes and Their Progenitors | J. Miller et al. | |
| Neutron Star Equation of State | ||
| The Behavior of Matter Under Extreme Conditions | F. Paerels et al. | |
| Nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy | ||
| Cosmological Studies with a Large-Area X-ray Telescope | A. Vikhlinin et al. | |
| Cosmic Feedback | ||
| Cosmic Feedback from Massive Black Holes | A. Fabian et al. | |
| Missing Baryons | ||
| The Evolution of Galaxy Clusters Across Cosmic Time | M. Arnaud et al. | |
| The Cosmic Web of Baryons | J. Bregman et al. | |
| The Missing Baryons in the Milky Way and Local Group | J. Bregman et al. | |
| Origin and Dispersion of Elements | ||
| Formation of the Elements | J. Hughes et al. | |
| Measuring the Gas and Dust Composition of the Galactic ISM and Beyond | J. Lee et al. | |
| Particle Acceleration | ||
| Starburst Galaxies: Outflows of Metals and Energy into the IGM | D. Strickland et al. | |
| Planet Formation | ||
| X-ray Studies of Planetary Systems | E. Feigelson et al. | |
| Stellar Magnetic Fields | ||
| Mass-Loss and Magnetic Fields as Revealed Through Stellar X-ray Spectroscopy | R. Osten et al. | |