An Overview of the NuSTAR Swift-BAT Extragalactic Survey and Preliminary Results
Abstract
NuSTAR has opened a unique window in the high-energy universe, providing hard X-ray band data at 3 to 79 keV with unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution. One of the Level 1 requirements of the NuSTAR science program is to probe the peak of the X-ray Background (XRB) by resolving it into individual sources. We achieve this through a 3-tiered extragalactic survey. Plans for the two deeper tiers, targeting the ECDFS and COSMOS fields, are presented in a coordinated poster by Boydsten et al.; the wide-area, shallow aspect of the NuSTAR extragalactic survey targets 100 known Swift-BAT AGN for 11 ks exposures. These data provide a blank-field survey from the detection of serendipitous high-energy sources in the NuSTAR fields-of view, as well as the highest-quality high-energy constraints to date on a large sample of bright, nearby AGNs. We outline the scientific goals and observation strategy for this program, which includes coordinated, simultaneous soft X-ray coverage with Swift-XRT. We also present preliminary results from several sources observed during the first six months of the NuSTAR mission.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221
- Pub Date:
- January 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AAS...22124414L