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Published January 9, 2024 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

The high energy X-ray probe (HEX-P): sensitive broadband X-ray observations of transient phenomena in the 2030s

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon University of California, Berkeley
  • 3. ROR icon University of Chicago
  • 4. ROR icon University of Tokyo
  • 5. ROR icon George Washington University
  • 6. ROR icon Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology
  • 7. ROR icon Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory
  • 8. ROR icon Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • 9. Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, New Haven, CT, United States
  • 10. ROR icon Yale University
  • 11. ROR icon Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
  • 12. ROR icon Space Telescope Science Institute
  • 13. ROR icon European Southern Observatory
  • 14. ROR icon Jet Propulsion Lab
  • 15. ROR icon Goddard Space Flight Center

Abstract

HEX-P is a probe-class mission concept that will combine high spatial resolution X-ray imaging (<10′′ FWHM) and broad spectral coverage (0.2–80 keV) with an effective area superior to NuSTAR above 10 keV to enable revolutionary new insights into a variety of astrophysical problems, especially those related to compact objects, accretion and outflows. HEX-P will launch at a time when the sky is being routinely scanned for transient gravitational wave, electromagnetic and neutrino phenomena that will require the capabilities of a sensitive, broadband X-ray telescope for follow up studies. These include the merger of compact objects such as neutron stars and black holes, stellar explosions, and the birth of new compact objects. A response time to target of opportunity observation requests of <24 hours and a field of regard of 3π steradians will allow HEX-P to probe the accretion and ejecta from these transient phenomena through the study of relativistic outflows and reprocessed emission, provide unique capabilities for understanding jet physics, and potentially revealing the nature of the central engine.

Copyright and License

© 2024 Brightman, Margutti, Polzin, Jaodand, Hotokezaka, Alford, Hallinan, Kammoun, Mooley, Masterson, Marcotulli, Rau, Wevers, Younes, Stern, García and Madsen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The work of DS was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. EK acknowledges financial support from the Centre National d?Etudes Spatiales (CNES). GH and KM acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation Grant AST-1911199.

Data Availability

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/db-perl/W3Browse/w3browse.pl.

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Additional details

Related works

Is new version of
Discussion Paper: arXiv:2311.04856 (arXiv)

Funding

National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Centre National d'Études Spatiales
National Science Foundation
AST-1911199

Dates

Accepted
2023-12-15

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy (PMA) , Space Radiation Laboratory , Astronomy Department , Owens Valley Radio Observatory
Publication Status
Published