Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences (Dec 2023)
The high energy X-ray probe (HEX-P): Galactic PeVatrons, star clusters, superbubbles, microquasar jets, and gamma-ray binaries
- Kaya Mori,
- Stephen Reynolds,
- Hongjun An,
- Aya Bamba,
- Aya Bamba,
- Aya Bamba,
- Roman Krivonos,
- Naomi Tsuji,
- Moaz Abdelmaguid,
- Jason Alford,
- Priyadarshini Bangale,
- Silvia Celli,
- Rebecca Diesing,
- Rebecca Diesing,
- Rebecca Diesing,
- Jordan Eagle,
- Chris L. Fryer,
- Stefano Gabici,
- Joseph Gelfand,
- Brian Grefenstette,
- Javier Garcia,
- Chanho Kim,
- Sajan Kumar,
- Ekaterina Kuznetsova,
- Brydyn Mac Intyre,
- Kristin Madsen,
- Silvia Manconi,
- Yugo Motogami,
- Hayato Ohsumi,
- Barbara Olmi,
- Barbara Olmi,
- Jaegeun Park,
- Gabriele Ponti,
- Gabriele Ponti,
- Toshiki Sato,
- Ruo-Yu Shang,
- Daniel Stern,
- Yukikatsu Terada,
- Yukikatsu Terada,
- Jooyun Woo,
- George Younes,
- George Younes,
- Andreas Zoglauer
Affiliations
- Kaya Mori
- Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States
- Stephen Reynolds
- Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States
- Hongjun An
- Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Republic of Korea
- Aya Bamba
- Department of Physics, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
- Aya Bamba
- Research Center for the Early Universe, School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
- Aya Bamba
- Trans-Scale Quantum Science Institute, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
- Roman Krivonos
- Space Research Institute (IKI), Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
- Naomi Tsuji
- Faculty of Science, Kanagawa University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
- Moaz Abdelmaguid
- Department of Physics, New York University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- Jason Alford
- Department of Physics, New York University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- Priyadarshini Bangale
- 0Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States
- Silvia Celli
- 1Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome and INFN Sezione di Roma, Rome, Italy
- Rebecca Diesing
- 2Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States
- Rebecca Diesing
- 3The School of Natural Sciences, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, United States
- Rebecca Diesing
- 4Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States
- Jordan Eagle
- 5NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States
- Chris L. Fryer
- 6Center for Non Linear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, United States
- Stefano Gabici
- 7Universite Paris Cite, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Astroparticule et Cosmologie, Paris, France
- Joseph Gelfand
- Department of Physics, New York University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- Brian Grefenstette
- 8Space Radiation Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States
- Javier Garcia
- 5NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States
- Chanho Kim
- Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Republic of Korea
- Sajan Kumar
- 9Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
- Ekaterina Kuznetsova
- Space Research Institute (IKI), Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
- Brydyn Mac Intyre
- 0Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
- Kristin Madsen
- 5NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States
- Silvia Manconi
- 1Laboratoire d’Annecy-le-Vieux de Physique Theorique, CNRS, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, Annecy, France
- Yugo Motogami
- 2Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, Sakura, Saitama, Japan
- Hayato Ohsumi
- 2Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, Sakura, Saitama, Japan
- Barbara Olmi
- 3INAF–Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy
- Barbara Olmi
- 4INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
- Jaegeun Park
- Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Republic of Korea
- Gabriele Ponti
- 5INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Merate, Italy
- Gabriele Ponti
- 6Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany
- Toshiki Sato
- 7Department of Physics, School of Science and Technology, Meiji University, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan
- Ruo-Yu Shang
- 8Department of Physics and Astronomy, Barnard College, New York, NY, United States
- Daniel Stern
- 9Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States
- Yukikatsu Terada
- 2Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, Sakura, Saitama, Japan
- Yukikatsu Terada
- 0Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Sagamihara, Japan
- Jooyun Woo
- Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States
- George Younes
- 5NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States
- George Younes
- 1Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States
- Andreas Zoglauer
- 2Space Sciences Laboratory, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2023.1303197
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 10
Abstract
HEX-P is a probe-class mission concept that will combine high spatial resolution X-ray imaging (<10″ FWHM) and broad spectral coverage (0.2–80 keV) with an effective area far superior to current facilities (including XMM-Newton and NuSTAR) to enable revolutionary new insights into a variety of important astrophysical problems. With the recent discoveries of over 40 ultra-high-energy gamma-ray sources (detected above 100 TeV) and neutrino emission in the Galactic Plane, we have entered a new era of multi-messenger astrophysics facing the exciting reality of Galactic PeVatrons. In the next decade, as more Galactic PeVatrons and TeV gamma-ray sources are expected to be discovered, the identification of their acceleration and emission mechanisms will be the most pressing issue in both particle and high-energy astrophysics. In this paper, along with its companion papers, we will present that HEX-P is uniquely suited to address important problems in various cosmic-ray accelerators, including Galactic PeVatrons, through investigating synchrotron X-ray emission of TeV–PeV electrons produced by both leptonic and hadronic processes. For Galactic PeVatron candidates and other TeV gamma-ray sources, HEX-P can fill in a large gap in the spectral-energy distributions (SEDs) of many objects observed in radio, soft X-rays, and gamma rays, constraining the maximum energies to which electrons can be accelerated, with implications for the nature of the Galactic PeVatrons and their contributions to the spectrum of Galactic cosmic rays beyond the knee at ∼3 PeV. In particular, X-ray observation with HEX-P and TeV observation with CTAO will provide the most powerful multi-messenger diagnostics to identify Galactic PeVatrons and explore a variety of astrophysical shock mechanisms. We present simulations of each class of Galactic TeV–PeV sources, demonstrating the power of both the imaging and spectral capabilities of HEX-P to advance our knowledge of Galactic cosmic-ray accelerators. In addition, we discuss HEX-P’s unique and complementary roles to upcoming gamma-ray and neutrino observatories in the 2030s.
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