Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Accreting Binaries Billions of Light Years Away:
X-ray Emission from Distant Galaxies

Ann Hornschemeier

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

X-ray studies of star forming galaxies are critical to understanding many topics from the enrichment of the interstellar medium of galaxies to the formation of accreting binary systems. Accreting binaries in particular provide a "post-mortem" constraint on the binary phase of stellar evolution and are likely the precursors of eventual gravity wave events. Binary population studies have improved dramatically with the launch of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, but most notably have been extended to cosmologically interesting redshifts where longer evolutionary timescales may finally be observed. The sensitivity of both Chandra and XMM-Newton have also expanded studies of normal (non-AGN) galaxies in cluster and group environments. This talk will cover these topics as well as a brief description of the promising future of X-ray astrophysics. This future includes NuSTAR, the International X-ray Observatory, and Generation-X.