Hubble Space Telescope
XMM-Newton Joint Program Information

XMM-Newton Cycle 12/HST Cycle 21
Joint Program Overview

By agreement with the HST Project, the XMM-Newton Project may award up to 30 orbits of HST observing time each observing cycle. Similarly, the HST Project may award up to 150 ks of XMM-Newton time. The time will be awarded only for highly ranked proposals that require the use of both observatories and shall not apply to usage of archival data. The only criterion above and beyond the usual review criteria is that both sets of data are required to meet the primary science goals. Proposers should have taken special care in justifying both the scientific and technical reasons for requesting observing time on both missions. For these solicitations, no HST time will be allocated without the need for XMM-Newton time on the same target to complete the proposed investigation.

For XMM-Newton's Cycle 12 and HST's Cycle 21, the XMM-Newton Observing Time Allocation Committee (OTAC) met in the fall of 2012 and reviewed their proposals. The following five joint XMM-Newton proposals (listed below) have been approved for execution in HST Cycle 21. These observations will be processed during the normal HST cycle ingest after the HST Telescope Allocation Committee (TAC) meets in May of 2013 with results released to the community by late-May.

Monitoring the awakening of the dormant SMBH at the center of our galaxy

Dr. Nicolas Grosso
Observatoire de Strasbourg
Program ID: 13403

The recently discovered G2 dense dusty gas cloud, infalling towards the dormant SMBH at the center of our galaxy SgrA*, should reach its pericenter in September 2013. The X-ray luminosity of SgrA* is expected to increase significantly at this period and the fragmentation of this cloud should lead to an enhanced activity period over several months/years. Therefore, we propose a large program to monitor SgrA* during the course of the G2 cloud near its pericenter passage and after this event, combining the XMM-Newton high-throughput with several multi-wavelength observations with ground-based telescopes and satellites. This will offer us an unique opportunity to study accretion events on a dormant SMBH and its (re-)activation process.

Deciphering AGN outflows: multiwavelength monitoring of NGC 5548

Dr. Jelle Kaastra
Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON)
Program ID: 13184

AGN outflows couple supermassive black holes to their environments. Using an ambitious multiwavelength campaign on NGC 5548, (XMM-Newton, HST, Swift, and optical) we propose to achieve a new level of physical understanding for these enigmatic winds by obtaining the deepest RGS spectrum of any AGN, allowing us to determine the ionisation structure of the gas. Using EPIC data we will measure the response of the outflow to continuum variations, which combined with HST/COS data determines unambiguously the location and tomography of the outflow components. Time-dependent UV and X-ray continuum variations will constrain the geometry and physics close to the black hole. Our team pioneered this approach, and recently applied it successfully (12 refereed papers) to Mrk 509.

Probing Black Hole Disk Atmospheres with EPIC and RGS Observations of 4U 1957+11

Dr. Michael Nowak
MIT
Program ID: 13380

We propose contemporaneous XMM-Newton and HST-COS observations of the black hole candidate 4U1957+11. We plan to search both the X-ray and UV spectra for evidence of a blue-shifted, magnetized wind, similar to that observed in high-resolution X-ray spectra of GRO J1655-40.

Catching AGN in Deep Minimum States to Unveil Their Core Environment

Dr. Norbert Schartel
XMM-Newton SOC, ESA
Program ID: 13387

The deep minimum state of AGNs is characterized by a strongly suppressed or even absent primary continuum. As the continuum disappears weak spectral features like relativistic iron lines or narrow soft X-ray emission lines from ionised plasmas become highly significant and their parameters can be determined. Therefore deep minimum states offer unique possibilities to investigate in detail the physics of the reprocessed components in AGN, including the immediate vicinity of the supermassive black hole. Applying our experience (several deep minimum observations) we propose two triggered 10ks XMM snapshot, one 80ks XMM follow-up and one HST (2 orbit) observation of an AGN in deep minimum state. We will identify deep minimum states based on Swift and XMM-Newton slew observations. This is a HST Disruptive ToO.

An XMM-Newton+HST study of the likely most X-ray luminous z>=0.9 galaxy cluster

Dr. Tim Schrabback
Bonn University
Program ID: 13493

We propose XMM-Newton+HST observations of the new, extremely X-ray luminous cluster ClGJ120959.0+495352 (z=0.90), discovered through our combined search of RASS and SDSS data. Optical and SZ data suggest that it is an excellent candidate for a very massive, dynamically relaxed cooling-core cluster, which are extremely rare at high z. The XMM-Newton data will provide the first resolved X-ray imaging of the system to confirm its dynamical state and constrain both the temperature profile and global cluster properties. The HST data will provide complementary constraints on the cluster mass and dynamical state from strong and weak lensing, enabling the comparison to scaling relations and the assessment if the cluster’s discovery is in line with standard cosmological expectations.

The programs approved from the previous XMM Cycle 11, 12 and 13 TACs can be found at the following links:
http://www.stsci.edu/hst/proposing/docs/Joint-XMM-HST-Cycle20
http://www.stsci.edu/hst/proposing/docs/Joint-XMM-HST-Cycle21.
http://www.stsci.edu/hst/proposing/docs/Joint-XMM-HST-Cycle22.