Large scale analysis of archival X-ray observations of galaxy clusters and other astrophysical sources
Dr. David Turner, Center for Space Sciences and Technology.
A variety of X-ray telescopes have operated (and are still operating) since the inception of X-ray astronomy over 40 years ago, and have collectively built up a huge set of data that are uniquely suited to serendipitous science. This general project will exploit these archives for the analysis of thousands of galaxy clusters and groups, measuring their temperatures, densities, and entropies, as well the measurement of properties for many other types of source. It will support the work of several large collaborations, including XCS, the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC), and Local Volume Complete Cluster Survey (LoVoCCS) collaboration. Additionally, it will likely enable exploratory discovery science investigations that are not yet planned.