High-Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy : Instrumentation, Data Analysis, and Science Hardback

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton Observatory have been the pioneering satellites for studying the Universe with X-rays and the cornerstone of X-ray spectroscopy since their launches more than 20 years ago.

The onboard gratings provide us a unique opportunity to distinguish individual spectral lines from different atoms thanks to their high energy resolutions.

Enormous discoveries have been achieved by these two missions when observing a variety of X-ray-emitting astronomical objects, such as black holes, supernova remnants, clusters of galaxies, and stars.

However, the data are limited to fairly bright X-ray sources.

The recent JAXA's mission Hitomi opened a new window of high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy thanks to its onboard X-ray calorimeter.

Although this mission was shortly terminated due to a mishap, Hitomi left behind a few sets of observations awaiting more data mining.

The first half of this book introduces the history of high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy and different generations of X-ray spectrometers.

A tutorial guide on how to reduce, analyze, and understand the astronomical data from Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Hitomi is also included.

The second half of the book reviews past results obtained by the high-resolution spectrometers on these missions on multiple topics and discusses possible discoveries by upcoming missions in the next decade.