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      X-ray Astronomy in the Laboratory with a Miniature Compact Object Produced by Laser-Driven Implosion

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          Abstract

          Laboratory spectroscopy of non-thermal equilibrium plasmas photoionized by intense radiation is a key to understanding compact objects, such as black holes, based on astronomical observations. This paper describes an experiment to study photoionizing plasmas in laboratory under well-defined and genuine conditions. Photoionized plasma is here generated using a 0.5-keV Planckian x-ray source created by means of a laser-driven implosion. The measured x-ray spectrum from the photoionized silicon plasma resembles those observed from the binary stars Cygnus X-3 and Vela X-1 with the Chandra x-ray satellite. This demonstrates that an extreme radiation field was produced in the laboratory, however, the theoretical interpretation of the laboratory spectrum significantly contradicts the generally accepted explanations in x-ray astronomy. This model experiment offers a novel test bed for validation and verification of computational codes used in x-ray astronomy.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          02 September 2009
          Article
          10.1038/nphys1402
          0909.0315
          5b11052d-7478-4804-bef8-b45b53fc761e

          http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

          History
          Custom metadata
          5 pages, 4 figures are included. This is the original submitted version of the manuscript to be published in Nature Physics
          astro-ph.IM astro-ph.SR

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