Duration-Luminosity Phase Space of X-ray Transients
In this paper, we give an overview of transient and variable phenomena in the 0.3 - 10 keV band, looking at gamma-ray bursts, shock breakouts, supernovae, tidal disruption events, active galactic nuclei, fast blue optical transients, cataclysmic variables (like novae and dwarf novae), magnetar flares and outbursts, fast radio bursts, cool stellar flares, X-ray binaries, and ultraluminous X-ray sources.
We use real light curves to populate the duration-luminosity phase space, and extrapolate from that areas of interest in which theorized or yet-undiscovered signals might exist. We identify Lx = 1034 - 1042 erg s-1 and t = 10-4 - 0.1 days as a key discovery phase space in transient X-ray astronomy.
We also take this opportunity to look at the performance parameters of various soft X-ray imaging instruments. Both extremely sensitive and large FOV instruments are key for the future of the field, with wide field instruments enabling serendipitous discovery of transient signals and instruments with low flux limits allowing for targeted follow up.
Data used in the paper are available on GitHub along with a package (xraydlps) intended to help with plotting and, very preliminary, classification from X-ray light curves.
You can also play with an interactive version of the full DLPS above or some of the other phase space plots below (note: if you are using Firefox as a browser, the interactive plots may not appear in full; switching to Safari or Chrome – or Chrome products like Brave – should fix it).