Multi-year Hard X-ray Monitoring of the JWST Time-Domain Field with NuSTAR and XMM-Newton
Abstract
Time-domain astrophysics is one of the primary scientific goals of the 2020 Decadal survey. We present the first hard X-ray (3-24 keV) monitoring of the deep extragalactic survey of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Time-Domain Field (TDF) near the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP). The JWST TDF is a GTO target allocated ~47 JWST hours. JWST will visit the NEP TDF four times, every 90 days after the first observation taken in Aug. 2022. A deep multi-wavelength campaign using ground and space-based observatories covering from radio to hard X-rays is in progress. The NuSTAR survey of JWST NEP TDF is the deepest NuSTAR extragalactic survey performed to date with a total exposure of 1.5 Ms (Cycle 5 and Cycle 6, multi-year program) covering 0.16 square degrees. In this field, we have detected 80 NuSTAR sources, including ~20 variable and transient sources appearing only in single observations. As this survey was designed to have variability as its primary focus, we report the first study of multi-year variability in NuSTAR surveys, thanks to our multi-epochal monitoring in the NuSTAR-TDF field, using an innovative method to analyze hard X-ray variability recently developed by our group. The NuSTAR surveys were also granted simultaneous XMM observations, which allow us to probe the multi-band X-ray variability in the field. Four more NuSTAR and XMM observations were granted in Cycle 8 to observe the field simultaneously with JWST and this is currently in progress, allowing us to probe the multiwavelength variability of the detected X-ray sources.
- Publication:
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AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division
- Pub Date:
- September 2023
- Bibcode:
- 2023HEAD...2040105Z