X-Raying the Hot Universe John P. Hughes Rutgers University

1. Astrophysical Studies of Supernova Remnants and Clusters of Galaxies X-Raying the Hot UniverseJohn P. HughesRutgers University

2. Group Members Jack Hughes at RU since Sept 1996 (PhD: Columbia) SNRs and CoGs Carlos Badenes post-doc (PhD: Barcelona) SNRs Gamil Cassam-Chenai post-doc (PhD: Saclay) SNRs Jessica Warren grad student (Vassar) SNRs Neelima Sehgal grad student (Yale) CoGs External Collaborators: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Univeristy of California, Davis.

3. Job Prospects Recent RU astronomy PhD graduates obtained jobs in industry, teaching colleges, NASA centers, academic post-docs, and research universities http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/ast/group-ast.html American Astronomical Society Career Services: http://www.aas.org/career/index.htm This figure shows the number of new job postings each month in the AAS Job Register. There has been a steady growth in the number of new jobs advertised, nearly doubling every five years

4. Principal Facilities Used Chandra X-ray Observatory NASA Great Observatory Launched 23 July 1999 First (and only) X-ray telescope with 1” angular resolution Nominal 10 year lifetime

5. Principal Facilities Used (cont.) XMM-Newton ESA X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission Launched 10 December 1999 Large collecting area Nominal 10 year lifetime

6. Principal Facilities Used (cont.) Ground-based facilities such as the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Obs. Optical telescopes of the US National Observatory 4-m, 1.5-m imaging and spectroscopy

7. Recent SNR Science Highlights J. S. Warren, J.P. Hughes, et al. 2005, “Cosmic Ray Acceleration at the Forward Shock in Tycho's Supernova Remnant: Evidence from Chandra X-ray Observations,” ApJ, 634, 376. J.P. Hughes, C.E. Rakowski, D.N. Burrows, and P.O. Slane 2000, “Nucleosynthesis and Mixing in Cassiopeia A,” ApJL, 528, L109.

8. On-going CoG Projects Chandra and XMM-Newton Observations of the Deep Lens Survey (DLS) Shear-Selected Cluster Survey Hubble Space Telescope Deep Lens Survey/NOAO

9. Gravitational Lensing • Gravity bends light - a consequence of General Relativity • Strong lensing • Arcs, multiple images • Weak lensing • Statistical effect: average over many randomly aligned background galaxies

10. Mass-Selected Clusters • Deep Lens Survey (DLS) over 20 deg2 could find up to100 such clusters! 40’ • First year Survey: Wittman et al 2006, ApJ, in press. (Detections and follow-up) Hughes et al 2006, ApJL, in prep. (Luminosity vs. temperature correlation)

11. Imminent Projects (SNRs) • Deep Chandra observations: • Cas A: 1 million second observation (in hand) • Kepler and G292.0+1.8: to be observed this year • Tycho: being proposed for observation next year • Accepted XMM-Newton observation: • 60 kilosec observation of young pulsar (135 ms period) in G292.0+1.8

12. Imminent Projects (CoGs) • Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Survey for CoGs using the Cosmic Microwave Background with a custom built telescope and camera to be sited in Chile. • First observations expected later this year • Survey continues through 2007 and 2008 • Main collaborators: Princeton (camera) and the Univ. of Pennsylvania (telescope) • Rutgers role: follow-up optical studies using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) and X-ray studies with Chandra and XMM-Newton

14. SALT

15. Longer Timescale Projects Southern African Large Telescope: RU has 10% of observing time on this 11-m telescope (one of the largest in the world) First light in Sept 2004 Scientifically useful observations beginning later this year Suzaku: US/Japanese X-ray spectroscopy satellite (launched Aug 2005), involves visit(s) to Japan Constellation X-Facility: NASA follow-on mission to Chandra with much more collecting area and high spectral resolution (post 2010)

16. Summary Well-defined, interesting thesis projects Financial support from NASA and NSF Good long term prognosis for astrophysics research in the US