The Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite

Abstract

Much of the baryonic matter in the Universe, including the most active and luminous sources, are best studied in the X-ray band. Key advances in X-ray optics and detectors have paved the way for the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS), a Probe-class mission that is a major improvement over Chandra, which has generated a steady stream of important discoveries for the past 2 decades. AXIS can be launched in the late 2020s and will transform our understanding in several major areas of astrophysics, including the growth and fueling of supermassive black holes, galaxy formation and evolution, the microphysics of cosmic plasmas, the time-variable universe, and a wide variety of cutting-edge studies. Relative to Chandra, the AXIS PSF is nearly twice as sharp on-axis; its field of view for subarcsecond imaging 70 times larger by area; its effective area at 1 keV is 10 times larger. The low-Earth orbit ensures a low and stable detector background, resulting in 50 times greater sensitivity than Chandra for extended sources. AXIS has a rapid repointing response with operations similar to Swift, but is 100 times more sensitive for time-domain science. These capabilities open up a vast discovery space and complement the next generation of astronomical observatories. A high-spectral-resolution mission (Athena) operating at the same time as a high-angular-resolution mission (AXIS) greatly increases the range of scientific discovery. AXIS will use lightweight X-ray optics made of thin single-crystal silicon mirrors developed at NASA Goddard. The detector array builds on a long legacy of X-ray CCD and provides improved photon localization, much faster readout time, and broader energy band. The estimated mission costs are consistent with the $1B Probe mission cost guideline.

A Probe-class mission study commissioned by NASA for the NAS Astro2020 Decadal Survey. Cost section redacted. 66 pages, 41 figures. v2: minor fixes

References in corpus (92)

• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• The physical properties of star forming galaxies in the low redshift universe
• Galactic Winds
• A luminous quasar at a redshift of z = 7.085
• An 800-million-solar-mass black hole in a significantly neutral Universe at redshift 7.5
• Relativistic Jets in Active Galactic Nuclei
• An Ultraluminous X-ray Source Powered by An Accreting Neutron Star
• Shocks and cold fronts in galaxy clusters
• New Interstellar Dust Models Consistent with Extinction, Emission, and Abundance Constraints
• An X-ray spectral study of 24 type-1 AGN
• The Chandra Deep Field-South Survey: 7 Ms Source Catalogs
• CANDELS Multi-wavelength Catalogs: Source Detection and Photometry in the GOODS-South Field
• The physics of galactic winds driven by active galactic nuclei
• The Effect of a Strong Stellar Flare on the Atmospheric Chemistry of an Earth-like Planet Orbiting an M dwarf
• Particle Acceleration on Megaparsec Scales in a Merging Galaxy Cluster
• Wind from the black-hole accretion disk driving a molecular outflow in an active galaxy
• A moving cold front in the intergalactic medium of A3667
• A possible close supermassive black-hole binary in a quasar with optical periodicity
• A Chandra Perspective On Galaxy-Wide X-ray Binary Emission And Its Correlation With Star Formation Rate And Stellar Mass: New Results From Luminous Infrared Galaxies
• Bow shock and radio halo in the merging cluster A520
• Cosmic Ray Acceleration at the Forward Shock in Tycho's Supernova Remnant: Evidence from Chandra X-ray Observations
• Dissecting X-ray-emitting Gas around the Center of our Galaxy
• Quantitative Interpretation of Quasar Microlensing Light Curves
• X-ray emitting young stars in the Orion Nebula
• Lyman continuum leaking from the compact star-forming dwarf galaxy J0925+1403
• The outflow structure of GW170817 from late time broadband observations
• Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - IX: Merger-induced AGN activity as traced by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
• Firehose and Mirror Instabilities in a Collisionless Shearing Plasma
• Modeling the spectral evolution of PWNe inside SNRs
• The Evolution of Normal Galaxy X-ray Emission Through Cosmic History: Constraints from the 6 Ms Chandra Deep Field-South
• Relativistic boost as the cause of periodicity in a massive black-hole binary candidate
• The Properties of Ultraviolet-Luminous Galaxies at the Current Epoch
• High-redshift AGN in the Chandra Deep Fields: the obscured fraction and space density of the sub-$L_{\ast }$ population
• The Observational Signatures of Supermassive Black Hole Seeds
• Lx-SFR relation in star forming galaxies
• Magnetic Nanoparticles in the Interstellar Medium: Emission Spectrum and Polarization
• Chandra constraints on the thermal conduction in the intracluster plasma of A2142
• Shock acceleration as origin of the radio relic in A521?
• Chandra Observations of the "Dark" Moon and Geocoronal Solar-Wind Charge Transfer
• The late inspiral of supermassive black hole binaries with circumbinary gas discs in the LISA band
• Origin and properties of dual and offset active galactic nuclei in a cosmological simulation at z=2
• A Chandrasekhar Mass Progenitor for the Type Ia Supernova Remnant 3C 397 from The Enhanced Abundances of Nickel and Manganese
• The Physics of Galaxy Cluster Outskirts
• Another shock for the Bullet cluster, and the source of seed electrons for radio relics
• A Radio Census of Binary Supermassive Black Holes
• Transit observations of the Hot Jupiter HD 189733b at X-ray wavelengths
• Chandra Temperature Map of Abell 754 and Constraints on Thermal Conduction
• Revealing the complex nature of the strong gravitationally lensed system H-ATLAS J090311.6+003906 using ALMA
• The Growth Efficiency of High-Redshift Black Holes
• The Hard X-Ray Luminosity Function of High-Redshift ($3<z\lesssim 5$) Active Galactic Nuclei
• Exclusion of Cosmic Rays in Protoplanetary Disks. II. Chemical Gradients and Observational Signatures
• Nonlinear growth of firehose and mirror fluctuations in turbulent galaxy-cluster plasmas
• The stripping of a galaxy group diving into the massive cluster A2142
• Detecting edges in the X-ray surface brightness of galaxy clusters
• Deep Chandra observations of Pictor A
• The origin of ICM enrichment in the outskirts of present-day galaxy clusters from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations
• Gravitational Lensing Size Scales for Quasars
• Testing the beamed inverse-Compton model for jet X-ray emission: velocity structure and deceleration?
• The Peculiar Pulsar Population of the Central Parsec
• The Dark-Matter Fraction in the Elliptical Galaxy Lensing the Quasar PG1115+080
• The electromagnetic chirp of a compact binary black hole: a phase template for the gravitational wave inspiral
• On Multiwavelength Emission of Large-Scale Quasar Jets
• X-ray Echo from the Sagittarius C Complex and 500-year Activity History of Sagittarius A*
• X-ray Observations of Parsec-Scale Tails behind Two Middle-Aged Pulsars
• Spatial structure of X-ray filaments in SN 1006
• A Submillimeter Perspective on the GOODS Fields (SUPER GOODS). III. A Large Sample of ALMA Sources in the GOODS-S
• A Universal Entropy Profile for the Hot Atmospheres of Galaxies and Clusters within $R_{2500}$
• Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities at the sloshing cold fronts in the Virgo cluster as a measure for the effective ICM viscosity
• The X-ray lightcurve of Sgr A* over the past 150 years inferred from Fe-Ka line reverberation in Galactic Centre molecular clouds
• Stripped elliptical galaxies as probes of ICM physics: II. Stirred, but mixed? Viscous and inviscid gas stripping of the Virgo elliptical M89
• The Cocoon Shocks of Cygnus A: Pressures and Their Implications for the Jets and Lobes
• The rapid evolution of AGN feedback in brightest cluster galaxies: switching from quasar-mode to radio-mode feedback
• The nature of the unresolved extragalactic soft CXB
• Chandra Spatially Resolved Spectroscopic Study and Multi-Wavelength Imaging of the Supernova Remnant 3C 397 (G41.1-0.3)
• Measuring the Innermost Stable Circular Orbits of Supermassive Black Holes
• Viscous Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities in highly ionised plasmas
• Latest results on Jovian disk X-rays from XMM-Newton
• The abundances and properties of Dual AGN and their host galaxies in the EAGLE simulations
• Mrk 71/NGC 2366: The nearest Green Pea analog
• Fermi non-detections of four X-ray jet sources and implications for the IC/CMB mechanism
• Three-dimensional numerical investigations of the morphology of type Ia SNRs
• Faint progenitors of luminous $z\sim 6$ quasars: why don't we see them?
• An azimuthally resolved study of the cold front in Abell 3667
• Variability and Proper Motion of X-ray Knots in the Jet of Centaurus A
• On the Spatially Resolved Star-Formation History in M51 II: X-ray Binary Population Evolution
• The imprints of AGN feedback within a supermassive black hole's sphere of influence
• Evidence for a constant IMF in early-type galaxies based on their X-ray binary populations
• Energy Dependence of Synchrotron X-Ray Rims in Tycho's Supernova Remnant
• Modeling supernova remnants: effects of diffusive cosmic-ray acceleration on the evolution, application to observations
• A Deep X-Ray Look At Abell 2142 --- Viscosity Constraints From Kelvin-Helmholtz Eddies, A Displaced Cool Peak That Makes A Warm Core, And A Possible Plasma Depletion Layer
• The X-ray and radio-emitting plasma lobes of 4C23.56: further evidence of recurrent jet activity and high acceleration energies
• Testing the Universality of the Stellar IMF with Chandra and HST

Cited by in corpus (3)

• The X-ray Halo Scaling Relations of Supermassive Black Holes
• High-redshift SMBHs can grow from stellar-mass seeds via chaotic accretion
• Effects of the Hubble Parameter on the Cosmic Growth of the First Quasars