The Hot and Energetic Universe with the X-ray observatory Athena

by Luigi Piro (IAPS/INAF)

Tuesday 11 Feb 2014, 16:00 → 18:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi (Dip. di Fisica - Edificio G. Marconi)

ESA has recently selected The Hot and Energetic Universe as the scientific theme to be addressed by its next L2 (Large) mission. In this talk I will present the science theme and the mission implementation that the Athena consortium has proposed.  Much like present and future missions, such as Planck or Euclid,  have been designed to unveil the nature of the Dark Universe, a dedicated study of the Hot and Energetic Universe is mandatory to understand  how ordinary matter emerge from the cosmic dawn and form the complex network of large scale structures that we see today, and how do black holes grow and shape the Universe.  The majority of ordinary matter in
the Universe consists of hot gas embedded in and delineating the large scale structure of dark matter. While the framework of the Universe is set by the cosmological parameters, the assembly and evolution of baryonic structures are strongly affected by processes of astrophysical origin, particularly those occurring or originating around accreting black holes.  These objects have a profound effect on the evolution of galaxies and larger scale structures, as we have just started to appreciate.  The challenge is to push the frontier of these
studies to the highest redshift, at the epoch of the formation black holes in the Universe and their popIII stars progenitors.  These two fundamental questions can only be revealed and fully understood via space-based observations at X-ray energies, with a large X-ray mission offering breakthrough capabilities, Athena,  that combines unprecedented throughput with state-of-the-art instrumentation for spatially-resolved high resolution spectroscopy and wide field imaging.