The XMM-Newton Extended Survey of the Taurus Molecular Cloud (XEST)

(abridged:) The XMM-Newton Extended Survey of the Taurus Molecular Cloud (XEST) surveys the most populated ~5 square degrees of the Taurus star formation region, using the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory to study the thermal structure, variability, and long-term evolution of hot plasma, to investigate the magnetic dynamo, and to search for new potential members of the association. Many targets are also studied in the optical, and high-resolution X-ray grating spectroscopy has been obtained for selected bright sources. The X-ray spectra have been coherently analyzed with two different thermal models (2-component thermal model, and a continuous emission measure distribution model). We present ov…

The NHXM observatory

Exploration of the X-ray sky has established X-ray astronomy as a fundamental astrophysical discipline. While our knowledge of the sky below 10 keV has increased dramatically (∼8 orders of magnitude) by use of grazing incidence optics, we still await a similar improvement above 10 keV, where to date only collimated instruments have been used. Also ripe for exploration is the field of X-ray polarimetry, an unused fundamental tool to understand the physics and morphology of X-ray sources. Here we present a novel mission, the New Hard X-ray Mission (NHXM) that brings together for the first time simultaneous high-sensitivity, hard-X-ray imaging, broadband spectroscopy and polarimetry. NHXM will…

XIPE: the x-ray imaging polarimetry explorer

XIPE, the X-ray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer, is a mission dedicated to X-ray Astronomy. At the time of writing XIPE is in a competitive phase A as fourth medium size mission of ESA (M4). It promises to reopen the polarimetry window in high energy Astrophysics after more than 4 decades thanks to a detector that efficiently exploits the photoelectric effect and to X-ray optics with large effective area. XIPE uniqueness is time-spectrally-spatially- resolved X-ray polarimetry as a breakthrough in high energy astrophysics and fundamental physics. Indeed the payload consists of three Gas Pixel Detectors at the focus of three X-ray optics with a total effective area larger than one XMM mirror bu…

The Deep Rho Ophiuchi XMM-Newton Observation (DROXO)

International audience; We present the X-ray data and the analysis status of the DROXO (Deep Rho Oph XMM-Newton Observation) project, aimed to mainly characterize the spectro-variability properties of YSOs in the nearby and very young ρ Oph star forming region. We focus on a few selected initial scientific results for few interesting YSOs, such as Elias 29 and YLW16A. In Elias 29 we see the 6.4 keV fluorescent Fe line as already reported in literature, whereas in YLW16A we do not detect the fluorescent line at odd with previous findings. Hence we conclude that the line intensity does change with time (and/or physical conditions).

The X-ray activity-rotation relation of T Tauri stars in Taurus-Auriga

The Taurus-Auriga star-forming complex hosts the only population of T Tauri stars in which an anticorrelation of X-ray activity and rotation period has been observed. We have used XMM-Newton's European Photon Imaging Cameras to perform the most sensitive survey to date of X-ray emission (0.3-10 keV) from young stars in Taurus-Auriga and investigate the dependences of X-ray activity measures -- X-ray luminosity, Lx, its ratio with the stellar luminosity, Lx/Lstar, and the surface-averaged X-ray flux, Fxs -- on rotation period. We tested for differences in the distributions of Lx/Lstar of fast and slow rotators, accretors and non-accretors, and compared the dependence of Lx/Lstar on the ratio…

XIPE: the X-ray imaging polarimetry explorer

arXiv:1309.6995v1.-- et al.

A survey of young stars in the Taurus Molecular Cloud with XMM-Newton

XMM Optical Monitor Survey of TMC

The Optical Monitor (OM) on-board XMM-Newton obtained optical/ultraviolet data for the XMM-Newton Extended Survey of the Taurus Molecular Cloud (XEST), simultaneously with the X-ray detectors. With the XEST OM data, we study the optical and ultraviolet properties of TMC members, and to perform correlative studies between the X-ray and OM light curves. In particular, we aim to determine whether accretion plays a significant role in the optical/ultraviolet and X-ray emissions. The Neupert effect in stellar flares is also investigated. Coordinates, average count rates and magnitudes were extracted from OM images, together with light curves with low time resolution (a few kiloseconds). For a fe…

YSOs in DROXO (Deep rho Oph XMM obs.)

X-rays from very young stars are powerful probes to investigate the mechanisms at work in the very first stages of the star formation and the origin of X-ray emission in very young stars. We present results from a 500ks long observation of the rho Ophiuchi cloud with a XMM-Newton large program named DROXO, aiming at studying the X-ray emission of deeply embedded young stellar objects (YSOs). Cone search capability for table J/A+A/519/A34/tablea1 (List of sources detected in the DROXO EPIC images) Cone search capability for table J/A+A/519/A34/tablea3 (ISOCAM YSOs (Bontemps et al. 2001, J/A+A/372/173) undetected in the DROXO field of view)