Studying these accreting neutron stars in X-rays allows to study their composition, magnetic field, and accretion geometry and help us to understand the formation of neutron stars as the end-product of stellar evolution better. When they are located in a binary system with another star, they can accrete material from that star, thereby producing copious amounts of X-rays.

Neutron stars are the compact remnants of dead stars and possess densities and magnetic field orders of magnitudes in excess of what is available in the lab. X-RAY INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNIQUE 'BURSTING PULSARĮSAC supervisor(s): Felix Fuerst, Celia Sanchez Fernandez and Peter Kretschmar This project was designed to provide a practical view of UV and X-ray astronomy, database programming and a client/server javascript and python programming.ģ. The system was used then to look for unusual ultraviolet and X-ray variability in a sample of galaxies. This project aimed to extend the system to access data from other X-ray satellites such as Chandra, Swift and EXOSAT and introduce ultraviolet images taken by GALEX and the optical monitors on board XMM-Newton and Swift. The system is complete for the XMM-Newton, Integral and ROSAT satellites and provides astronomers with the possibility to quickly look at the variations in light from celestial objects and find exciting new transients. In a previous trainee project web-based tools were produced to find and display the flux of X-rays and Gamma-rays coming from stars and galaxies. EXTENSION AND EXPLOITATION OF HIGH-ENERGY UPPER LIMIT TOOLSĮSAC supervisor(s): Richard Saxton and Peter Kretschmar The aim of the project was to help gain experience in scientific research and to develop a script which analyses the Swift observations in an automated way and compares the obtained fluxes with known source fluxes based on the already established XMM-Newton and ROSAT catalogues.Ģ. Such tool would allow to optimize the operational as well as the scientific work and allow the efficient trigger of the XMM-Newton ToO. Whereas Swift observations can be analysed with a reasonable amount of work, automated tools to systematically analyse Swift observations are not available in the XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre. Swift observations can then be used to reveal sources in a specific flux or spectral state and trigger XMM-Newton follow-up, Target of Opportunity (ToO), observations. Designed to study gamma-ray-bursts, when not observing one of those events, Swift monitors the behaviour of X-ray sources in the sky. The NASA Swift mission is ideally suited for this task. Knowing a source state early enough is then key to request, prepare and schedule the observations. Once a source reaches the aimed specific flux and hence state, deep follow-up observations allow science which is not accessible in other states. After 16 years of successful operations of XMM-Newton, more and more astronomers are requesting to observe sources in a specific state, i.e. Many astronomical sources are extremely variable in X-rays, very often in an unpredictable way and often different source fluxes correspond to different physical states of the source.

The large collecting area and spectral capabilities combine with an ability to make long uninterrupted exposures making XMM-Newton an ideally suited observatory to provide highly sensitive, high spectral resolution, long and continuous X-ray observations.

In addition XMM-Newton is also equipped with two Reflection Grating Spectrometers and an Optical Monitor for simultaneous X-ray imaging, spectroscopy and UV/optical measurements. Each telescope has an X-ray CCD camera, comprising the European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC). It carries three high throughput X-ray telescopes with an unprecedented effective area. XMM-Newton is an ESA space observatory that collects X-rays from astronomical sources. TRIGGERING XMM-NEWTON TARGET OF OPPORTUNITY OBSERVATIONS WITH SWIFTĮSAC supervisor(s): Norbert Schartel, Maria Santos-Lleo and Richard Saxton

Planet zoo server not reachable