ASIAA Summer Students Program
ASIAA Summer Student Program 2024
July 1 - August 30

2024 Project Description

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High-resolution spectroscopy of diffuse, hot X-ray emitting gas with XRISM

Keywords:
Diffuse, hot X-ray emitting plasma
Galaxy clusters
X-ray Astronomy
XRISM

Supervisors

Shutaro Ueda, Keiichi Umetsu
Find out more about supervisors on ASIAA website

Task Description and Goals

Galaxy clusters were being considered literally as a ``cluster of galaxies'' within a certain field in the sky, i.e., no or little material filling in intracluster space. However, X-ray observations discovered a large amount of diffuse, hot X-ray emitting gas with temperature of 10^7-8 Kelvin (so-called intracluster medium) covering the whole field of individual clusters of galaxies for the first time. The estimated mass of the intracluster medium is about ~ 10^14 solar mass (i.e., ~ 10^44 kg), which is a factor of 2 - 3 larger than the total mass of galaxies in a cluster field. The intracluster medium is indeed a dominant component of baryons (i.e., ordinary matters) in the Universe!! The intracluster medium is trapped in the gravitational potential well of galaxy clusters dominated by dark matter. Therefore, the evolution of the intracluster medium is always coupled with that of galaxy clusters. XRISM is the new generation X-ray astronomy satellite developed by JAXA and NASA launched in 2023, and has an X-ray microcalorimeter called "Resolve" (XRISM webpage). Since the spectral energy resolution of Resolve is 30 times better than that of X-ray CCD cameras onboard current working X-ray astronomy satellites, Resolve is strongly expected to obtain revolutionary data on all the X-ray emitting astronomical objects, in particular galaxy clusters. In this project, we aim to explore gas dynamics and thermodynamic properties of the intracluster medium with XRISM. To this end, we will carry out data analysis of XRISM observations for galaxy clusters including X-ray spectral and imaging analysis. In addition, we will try to develop a machine-learning technique to guide X-ray spectral analysis with Resolve.

Required Background

Passion for astrophysics

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