Journal article
The high energy Universe at ultra-high resolution: the power and promise of X-ray interferometry
- Abstract:
- We propose the development of X-ray interferometry (XRI), to reveal the Universe at high energies with ultra-high spatial resolution. With baselines which can be accommodated on a single spacecraft, XRI can reach 100 μ as resolution at 10 Å (1.2 keV) and 20 μ as at 2 Å (6 keV), enabling imaging and imaging-spectroscopy of (for example) X-ray coronae of nearby accreting supermassive black holes (SMBH) and the SMBH ‘shadow’; SMBH accretion flows and outflows; X-ray binary winds and orbits; stellar coronae within ∼ 100 pc and many exoplanets which transit across them. For sufficiently luminous sources XRI will resolve sub-pc scales across the entire observable Universe, revealing accreting binary SMBHs and enabling trigonometric measurements of the Hubble constant with X-ray light echoes from quasars or explosive transients. A multi-spacecraft ‘constellation’ interferometer would resolve well below 1 μ as, enabling SMBH event horizons to be resolved in many active galaxies and the detailed study of the effects of strong field gravity on the dynamics and emission from accreting gas close to the black hole.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 2.2MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s10686-021-09724-w
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Experimental Astronomy More from this journal
- Volume:
- 51
- Pages:
- 1081-1107
- Publication date:
- 2021-05-17
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-03-02
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1572-9508
- ISSN:
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0922-6435
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1180739
- Local pid:
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pubs:1180739
- Deposit date:
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2021-06-24
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Uttley et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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