Diploma Theses

High-Fidelity X-ray imaging analysis of XMM-Newton data

The XMM-Newton Satellite is the largest X-ray observatory in space. In combination with CHANDRA it is one of the two state-of-the-art X-ray observing facilities these days. The huge collecting area of XMM-Newton`s X-ray mirrors combined with the sensitive CCD-detectors makes it the ideal instrument to study diffuse soft X-ray emission of a variety of objects.

However, there are systematic uncertainties concerning the instrumental response: different background signals like solar protons, cosmic-ray induced background noise, galactic foreground emission, and also vignetting degrade the X-ray images. The topic of your diploma thesis will be a detailed study of the different components of the systematic uncertainties and also developing procedures to mitigate their influence on the scientific results.

A deep XMM-Newton observation of the well studied dwarf galaxy Holmberg II will be analyzed. The improved data reduction pipeline will be compared with the standard data reduction steps. It might be possible that also the CHANDRA data of Holmberg II may be part of the diploma thesis.

Some general computer and programming experience is quite helpful but not required.

Contact: Jürgen Kerp or Meikel Kappes