A Hard X-ray View of Starburst Galaxies with NuSTAR
Abstract
Six nearby starburst galaxies are being observed jointly with NuSTAR and soft X-ray imaging telescopes Chandra and XMM-Newton. These observations are providing crucial new input on what dominates the hard X-ray emission from star-forming galaxies, including the balance between accretion onto supermassive black holes and that onto stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars. We highlight our recently published results on the nuclear region of NGC 253 (Lehmer et al. 2013) which demonstrated that the hard X-ray emission from the galaxy is dominated by X-ray binaries (stellar mass black holes and neutron stars) rather than an accreting supermassive black hole. We describe the NuSTAR, Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of the two other galaxies (M83 and Arp 299) that have been recently completed as well as plans for the remaining three galaxies. These plans will be of interest to the wider community due to the anticipated opportunity to propose for NuSTAR observing time through a Guest Observer program.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #223
- Pub Date:
- January 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014AAS...22341003H