"We propose to develop a revolutionary x-ray camera for astrophysical imaging spectroscopy. High-resolution x-ray spectroscopy is a powerful tool for studying the evolving universe. Emission line ratios (e.g. within the He-like triplet) provide density and temperature diagnostics. Emission and absorption line energies identify ions and determine their velocities, and the shape of the lines can be used to study turbulence or the relativistic effects of a supermassive black hole. The grating spectrometers on the XMM and Chandra satellites demonstrated the power of high-resolution x-ray spectroscopy for astrophysics, but there remains a need for instrumentation that can provide higher spectral resolution with high throughput in the Fe-K band and that can enable spatial/spectral investigations of extended sources, such as supernova remnants and galaxy clusters. The instrumentation needed is a broad-band imaging spectrometer - basically an x-ray camera that can precisely resolve x-ray energies and fluxes over a large field-of-view. While we do not claim that in 3 years we will have developed such detectors, we advocate developing the technology that has the greatest potential for achieving this. Theoretically, magnetically-coupled microcalorimeters are best equipped to achieve sub-eV energy resolution in very large formats. We propose to build upon the work carried out by our group on metallic magnetic calorimeters (MMC) in the antecedent program. The great promise of MMCs for sub-eV energy resolution has been recognized for years. During our current research program, an accident in detector fabrication produced devices that derived their sensitivity from a different operating principle - the temperature dependence of a superconduc

"Since the summer of 2000 we have successfully deployed a high resolution x-ray microcalorimeter spectrometer, based on the spaceflight XRS instrument, at the Electron Beam Ion Trap (EBIT) facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Over the last decade, this highly successful partnership has made fundamental measurements in laboratory astrophysics including the measurements of the absolute cross sections of all the Fe L shell transitions from Fe XVII to Fe XXIV, line ratios in Fe and Ni L shell transitions, measurements of Fe K shell emission over a wide range of electron energies, and direct measurements of charge exchange emission from highly ionized Fe, O, N, and most recently L shell S, using a variety of donor gases. This work has resulted in the publication of over 30 peer-reviewed articles with many more either submitted or in preparation. The newest addition to the facility, the ECS microcalorimeter spectrometer, developed under this program, has performed flawlessly as a facility-class instrument since 2007. We propose here to continue our highly successful partnership and deploy new technology to resolve lines in the important 1/4 keV band that encompasses the M-shell iron emission and the L shell emission, including charge exchange, of many of the lower-Z elements, such as Si, S, Mg, Ne, Ca, and Ar. We thus propose completing a new spectrometer that will bring substantially improved performance to the laboratory astrophysics program at EBIT and will enable fundamentally new measurements. Thus, in addition to maintaining the current spectrometers, which will begin this work, a significant component of this proposal is the completion of a new spectrometer leveraged off of the substantial progress in high-resolution x-ray detectors developed for the International X-ray Observatory mission. The spectrometer will be composed of a detector system with unparalleled spectral resolution: 2 eV resolution across the 0.05-10 keV band. This will allow

Microcalorimeter x-ray instruments are non-dispersive, high spectral resolution, broad-band, high cadence imaging spectrometers. We have been developing these instruments for x-ray astrophysics for over 25 years and have successfully flown them on both suborbital and orbital observatories. Microcalorimeter spectrometers are true spatial-spectral event-driven instruments. The core instrument for the Astro-H observatory to be launched in 2014 and for the International X-ray Observatory planned for around 2022 [1] are both microcalorimeter spectrometers. For the past two years, supported by the Solar and Heliospheric ROSES program, we have been adapting this highly successful technology to the very different requirements of solar physics. This leverages the large NASA investment in this technology to produce instruments optimized for solar physics with only a moderate development program.

During the past two years, we have developed a high spatial resolution, high cadence microcalorimeter optimized for solar observations with a ground-breaking spectral resolving power of nearly 3000 at 6 keV. This exceeds the performance goals of our program. In fact, the single-pixel performance achieved during this program is already sufficient for a solar optimized instrument as described in section 2, albeit using small arrays of detectors. We propose here to continue this successful program by developing large focal-plane arrays, optimized for solar physics and their read-out systems. This complements our existing development programs in astrophysics, where we have already produced and tested kilo-pixel arrays for IXO. The end-result of the proposed work will be a solar-optimized detector system proven and ready for integration into a suborbital payload and then onto a space-borne observatory. Both the suborbital program and an orbital instrument would allow high cadence spatial-spectral observations across the x-ray band from 0.1 to above 10 keV, enabling new science as described in section 1.4. Ultimately this will produce instrumentation suitable for deployment on an Explorer-class mission and, possibly, a remote sensing contribution to the Solar Energetic Particle Acceleration and Transport (SEPAT) Solar-Terrestrial Probe [2].  

Wide area X-ray and far-infrared surveys are a fundamental tool to investigate the link between AGN growth and star formation, especially in the low-redshift universe (z < 1). The Herschel-Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS) has covered 550 deg² in five far-infrared and sub-mm bands, 16 deg² of which have been presented in the Science Demonstration Phase (SDP) catalogue. The reference paper cited below introduces the XMM-Newton observations in the H-ATLAS SDP area, covering 7.1 deg² with flux limits of 2 x 10^-15, 6 x 10^-15, and 9 x 10^-15 erg/s/cm² in the 0.5-2, 0.5-8 and 2-8keV bands, respectively. The paper presents the source detection techniques and the "main" catalog, which includes 1700, 1582 and 814 sources detected by EMLDetect in the 0.5-8, 0.5-2 and 2-8keV bands, respectively; the number of unique sources is 1816. The authors extract spectra and derive fluxes from power-law fits for 398 sources with more than 40 counts in the 0.5-8 keV band. They compare the best-fit fluxes with those in the catalog, which were obtained assuming a common photon index Gamma of 1.7; the authors find no bulk difference between the fluxes, and a moderate dispersion s of 0.33 dex. Using wherever possible the fluxes from the spectral fits, the authors derive the 2-10 keV Log N-Log S distribution, which is consistent with a Euclidean distribution. Finally, they release the computer code for the tools which they developed for this project. Sources were detected with a two-stage process. With the first pass at low significance, the authors got a list of candidate detections; and on the second pass they raised the significance threshold and derived accurate source parameters. Between the two passes, and because the second pass needs an input catalog, they identified the sources detected in more than one band. In the first pass, the SAS wavelet detection program ewavelet was run separately on each of the 0.5-2, 2-8 and 0.5-8 keV images of the entire mosaic, with a significance threshold of 4 sigma and the default wavelet scales (minimum 2 pixels, maximum 8 pixels, with a pixel size of 4). All parameters in this catalog which were derived from ewavelet have been given a prefix of 'wav' in this HEASARC representation so as to distinguish them from the parameters derived using EMLDetect. In the second pass, the authors used the SAS EMLDetect program to validate the detections, refine the coordinates and obtain maximum-likelihood estimates of the source counts, count rates and fluxes. The EMLDetect minimum likelihood was set at L = 4.6, as in Ranalli et al. (2013, A&A, 555, A42), which corresponds to a false-detection probability of 1.01 x 10^-2. Together with the 4-sigma threshold for ewavelet, for the final catalog this yields a joint significance between 4 sigma and 5 sigma, but which cannot be further constrained without simulations. This table contains the X-ray sources which were detected in the 7.1 deg² XMM-Newton observations of the H-ATLAS field. The 1816 sources which were detected by both programs were presented in the main table in the reference paper (and are included in this HEASARC table where they are indicated by a value of the source_sample parameter of 'main'), while the 234 sources which were only detected by ewavelet were presented in the supplementary table in the reference paper (and are included in this HEASARC table where they are indicated by a value of the source_sample parameter of 'supp'). The same parameters were present in both the main and supplementary tables in the reference paper, but those parameters which came from EMLDetect are empty for the sources in the supplementary table. The parameters obtained using ewavelet (those parameters with the 'wav' prefix in their names) containing the source properties (counts, count rates, fluxes, exposure times, background, wavelet detection scale and source

Following the advent of increasingly sensitive X-ray observatories, deep observations of early-type stars became possible. However, the results for only a few objects or clusters have until now been reported and there has been no large survey comparable to that based upon the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS). A limited survey of X-ray sources, consisting of all public XMM observations (2XMMi) and slew survey data (XMMSL1), is now available. The X-ray counterparts to hot, massive stars have been searched for in these catalogs. About 300 OB stars were detected with XMM. Half of them were bright enough for a spectral analysis to be possible, and we make available the detailed spectral properties that were derived. The X-ray spectra of O stars are represented well by low (< 1 keV) temperature components and seem to indicate that an absorption column is present in addition to the interstellar contribution. The X-ray fluxes are well correlated with the bolometric fluxes, with a scatter comparable to that of the RASS studies and thus larger than found previously with XMM for some individual clusters. These results contrast with those of B stars that exhibit a large scatter in the L_X - L_bol relation, no additional absorption being found, and the fits indicate a plasma at higher temperatures. Variability (either within one exposure or between multiple exposures) was also investigated whenever possible: short-term variations are far more rare than long-term ones (the former affects a few percent of the sample, while the latter concerns between one third and two thirds of the sources). This is a catalog of X-ray emitters amongst early-type stars following a correlation between the Reed (2003, AJ, 125, 2531) Catalog of galactic OB Stars and the 2XMMi Catalog (Watson et al. 2009, A&A, 493, 339). See the reference paper for more details. This table was created by the HEASARC in November 2009 based on CDS table J/A+A/506/1055 file table1.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

This table contains the XMM-Newton EPIC COSMOS X-ray point-like source catalog (XMM-COSMOS). The COSMOS survey is a multiwavelength survey aimed to study the evolution of galaxies, AGN and large scale structures. Within this survey, XMM-COSMOS is a powerful tool for detecting AGN and galaxy clusters. The XMM-COSMOS is a deep X-ray survey over the full 2 deg² of the COSMOS area. It consists of 55 XMM-Newton pointings for a total exposure of ~1.5 Ms with an average vignetting-corrected depth of 40 ks across the field of view and a sky coverage of 2.13 deg². The analysis was performed using the XMM-SAS data analysis package in the 0.5-2 keV, 2-10 keV and 5-10 keV energy bands. Source detection has been performed using a maximum likelihood technique especially designed for raster scan surveys. The completeness of the catalog as well as log N-log S and source density maps have been calibrated using Monte Carlo simulations. This is the catalogue of point-like X-ray sources detected with the EPIC CCD cameras. The catalogs contains a total of 1887 unique sources detected in at least one band with likelihood parameter det_ml > 10. The survey, which shows unprecedented homogeneity, has a flux limit of ~1.7 x 10^-15 erg/cm²/s, ~9.3 x 10^-15 erg/cm²/s and ~1.3 x 10^-14 erg/cm²/s over 90% of the area (1.92 deg²) in the 0.5-2 keV, 2-10 keV and 5-10 keV energy bands, respectively. This table was created by the HEASARC in April 2009 based on the electronic version of Table 3 from the paper which was obtained from the CDS (their catalog J/A+A/497/635 file catalog.dat). It was last updated in May 2010 to correct the source number for XMMU J100100.7+015947 to be XMMC 129, as indicated by SIMBAD. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

The EDS spectra discussed and used to create figures in the MRS journal article "Simulating Electron-Excited Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectra with the NIST DTSA-II Open-Source Software Platform"

Many different classes of X-ray sources contribute to the Galactic landscape at high energies. Although the nature of the most luminous X-ray emitters is now fairly well understood, the population of low-to-medium X-ray luminosity (L_X = 10²⁷ - 10³⁴ erg/s) sources remains much less studied, our knowledge being mostly based on the observation of local members. The advent of wide-field and high-sensitivity X-ray telescopes such as XMM-Newton now offers the opportunity to observe this low-to-medium L_X population at large distances. This study reports the results of a Galactic plane survey conducted by the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (SSC). Beyond its astrophysical goals, this survey aims at gathering a representative sample of identified X-ray sources at low latitude that can be used later on to statistically identify the rest of the serendipitous sources discovered in the Milky Way. The survey is based on 26 XMM-Newton observations, obtained at |b| < 20 degrees, distributed over a large range in Galactic longitudes and covering a summed area of 4 deg². The flux limit of this survey is 2 x 10^-15 erg/cm²/s in the soft (0.5 - 2 keV) band and 1 x 10^-14 erg/cm²/s in the hard (2 - 1 2keV) band. A total of 1319 individual X-ray sources have been detected. Using optical follow-up observations supplemented by cross-correlation with a large range of multi-wavelength archival catalogs, the authors identify 316 X-ray sources. This constitutes the largest group of spectroscopically identified low-latitude X-ray sources at this flux level. The majority of the identified X-ray sources are active coronae with spectral types in the range A to M at maximum distances of ~1 kpc. The number of identified active stars increases towards late spectral types, reaching a maximum at K. Using infrared colors, the authors classify 18% of the stars as giants. The observed distributions of F_X/F_V, X-ray and infrared colors indicates that their sample is dominated by a young (100 Myr) to intermediate (600 Myr) age population with a small contribution of close main-sequence or evolved binaries. The authors find other interesting objects such as cataclysmic variables (d ~ 0.6 - 2 kpc), low-luminosity high-mass stars (likely belonging to the class of Gamma-Cas-like systems, d ~ 1.5 - 7 kpc), T Tauri and Herbig-Ae stars. A handful of extragalactic sources located in the highest Galactic latitude fields could be optically identified. For the 20 fields observed with the EPIC pn camera, the authors have constructed log N(>S) - log S curves in the soft and hard bands. In the soft band, the majority of the sources are positively identified with active coronae and the fraction of stars increases by about one order of magnitude from b = 60 degrees to b = 0 degrees at an X-ray flux of 2 x 10^-14 erg/cm²/s. The hard band is dominated by extragalactic sources, but there is a small contribution from a hard Galactic population formed by CVs, HMXB candidates or Gamma-Cas-like systems and by some active coronal stars that are also detected in the soft band. At b = 0 degrees, the surface density of hard sources brighter than 1 x 10^-13 erg/cm²/s steeply increases by one order of magnitude from l = 20 degrees to the Galactic center region (l = 0.9 degrees). This HEASARC table contains 739 X-ray sources detected in the 26 different fields observed in this study and listed in Tables 8 - 33, inclusive, of the reference paper. These 739 sources have the best XMM quality, i.e. the summary flag sum_flag which contains information about flags set automatically and manually for a given source is zero, meaning that there are no negative flags for the source detection, have either a 2MASS, USNO, GSC, or SDSS counterpart, whatever the probability of identification is, or have some information via SIMBAD or the authors own