X-ray astrophysics enabled by microcalorimeter spectrometers - Livestream

X-rays from astrophysical objects provide a view into some of nature’s most violent and extreme environments. Telescopes sensitive to 0.1-100 keV photons provide unique probes of accreting black holes and the warped spacetime around them, clusters of galaxies - the Universe’s most massive gravitational potential wells, the growth and evolution of galaxies, and much more. The coming generation of astrophysical x-ray missions will deploy arrays of x-ray microcalorimeters. These detectors enable a powerful combination of high spectral resolution and high quantum efficiency over a broad energy range (0.1-12 keV). In this talk I will review the motivation for observing the universe in the x-ray waveband and highlight the major differences in approach for x-ray observations compared to optical observations, describe the microcalorimeter detector concept and the underlying superconducting sensors, and touch on the space missions that will carry microcalorimeter-based instruments in the years and decades to come.

Speaker: Meghan Eckart, Lawrence Livermore National Lab

See weblink for additional details and to request access to this talk.