ASTRO-H White Paper - Stars -- Accretion, Shocks, Charge Exchanges and Magnetic Phenomena

TL;DR

The paper discusses how ASTRO-H's advanced X-ray instruments will enable detailed studies of stellar X-ray emissions, helping to understand the physical mechanisms behind phenomena like accretion shocks and magnetic activity.

Contribution

It highlights the potential of ASTRO-H's spectrometers to advance understanding of stellar X-ray emission mechanisms that are not yet fully understood.

Findings

Enhanced spectral resolution will clarify emission mechanisms.

Broad energy coverage enables comprehensive stellar studies.

High signal-to-noise spectra will resolve existing mysteries.

Abstract

X-ray emission from stars has origins as diverse as the stars themselves: accretion shocks, shocks generated in wind-wind collisions, or release of magnetic energy. Although the scenarios responsible for X-ray emission are thought to be known, the physical mechanisms operating are in many cases not yet fully understood. Full testing of many of these mechanisms requires high energy resolution, large effective area, and coverage of broad energy bands. The loss of the X-ray calorimeter spectrometer on board ASTRO-E2 was a huge blow to the field; it would have provided a large sample of high resolution spectra of stars with high signal-to-noise ratio. Now, with the advent of the ASTRO-H Soft X-ray Spectrometer and Hard X-ray Imager, we will be able to examine some of the hot topics in stellar astrophysics and solve outstanding mysteries.