X-RAY ASTRONOMY: Stellar Endpoints, AGN, and the Diffuse X-Ray Background

X-RAY ASTRONOMY: Stellar Endpoints, AGN, and the Diffuse X-Ray Background

Nicholas E. White, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics, Greenbelt, MD, USA ; Giorgio G. C. Palumbo, ASI, Rome, ITALY ; Giuseppe Malaguti, ITESRE/CNR, Bologna, ITALY

Conference Location and Date: Bologna, Italy, 6-10 September 1999

Subseries: Astronomy and Astrophysics

Published December 2001; ISBN 0-7354-0043-1 One Volume, Print; 1058 pages; 6 3/8 x 9 1/4 inches; Hardcover; $260.00

Readership: astronomers and astrophysicists

This conference took place around the time of the launch of the new X-ray observatories Chandra and XMM-Newton. The meeting marked an opportunity to look back on a successful decade of results from the ROSAT, ASCA, RXTE and BeppoSAX missions. The two topics covered at the meeting were: (1) x-ray binaries and (2) AGN and the x-ray background. X-ray binaries provide a natural laboratory for probing the extreme environments of black holes and neutron stars. A substantial fraction of the x-ray background is the superposition of active galactic nuclei (AGN), which are powered by supermassive black holes. The meeting was organized jointly by ITESRE/CNR and NASA/GSFC, with support from ASI. The meeting itself proved to be very timely and gave an excellent summary of the past discoveries as well as the science challenges awaiting the new missions that would dominate the first decade of the 21st century. The first public presentation of the exciting results from the newly launched Chandra X-ray Observatory were a highlight.

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