X-ray Probes of Local and Cosmological Star Formation
Andrew Ptak
It is becoming increasingly clear that X-rays are a useful tool for probing
star formation. In the local universe, X-ray observations of galaxies often
show the immediate (SN, hot gas, high-mass X-ray binaries) and delayed
(low-mass X-ray binaries) results of star formation. X-rays are now
providing interesting constraints for the star-formation history of the
universe at redshifts of order ~ 1, and we have derived the first X-ray
luminosity functions of normal galaxies at z>0 in the Chandra Deep Fields
(CDFs). We selected galaxies in the CDFs using a novel Bayesian statistical
approach, and the application of this type of analysis to other surveys will
be discussed. In order to properly determine the (relatively) unbiased
statistical X-ray properties of galaxies we are performing several wide-area
and optically-selected surveys of nearby galaxies using Chandra and
XMM-Newton data.