X-ray astronomy in the new Millenium. A Summary

Abstract

Recent X-ray observations have had a major impact on topics ranging from protostars to cosmology. They have also drawn attention to important and general physical processes that currently limit our understanding of thermal and nonthermal X-ray sources. These include unmeasured atomic astrophysics data (wavelengths, oscillator strengths etc.), basic hydromagnetic processes (e.g. shock structure, reconnection), plasma processes (such as electron-ion equipartition and heat conduction) and radiative transfer (in disks and accretion columns). Progress on these problems will probably come from integrative studies that draw upon observations, throughout the electromagnetic spectrum, of different classes of source. X-ray observations are also giving a new perspective on astronomical subjects, like the nature of galactic nuclei and the evolution of stellar populations. They are contributing to answering central cosmological questions including the measurement of the matter content of the universe, understanding its overall luminosity density, describing its chemical evolution and locating the first luminous objects. X-ray astronomy has a healthy future with several international space missions under construction and in development.

arXiv comment12 pages

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei: Past, Present and Future Research
• BL Lac Objects in the Synchrotron Proton Blazar Model
• The XMM-Newton view of PG quasars: II. Properties of the Fe K-alpha line
• Host galaxies and black hole masses of low and high luminosity radio loud active nuclei
• XMM-Newton observation of the NLS1 Galaxy Ark 564: I. Spectral analysis of the time-average spectrum