Explore the vast range of titles available.

Since their first discovery in the late 1960s, gamma-ray bursts have attracted an exponentially growing interest from the international community due to their central role in the most highly debated open questions of the modern research of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. These range from the intimate nuclear composition of high-density material within the core of ultra-dense neuron stars, to stellar evolution via the collapse of massive stars, the production and propagation of gravitational waves, as well as the exploration of the early universe by unveiling the first stars and galaxies (assessing also their evolution and cosmic re-ionization). GRBs in the past ∼50 years have stimulated the development of cutting-edge technological instruments for observations of high-energy celestial sources from space, leading to the launch and successful operations of many different scientific missions (several of them still in data-taking mode currently). In this review, we provide a brief description of the GRB-dedicated missions from space being designed and developed for the future. The list of these projects, not meant to be exhaustive, shall serve as a reference to interested readers to understand what is likely to come next to lead the further development of GRB research and the associated phenomenology.

OAO 1657-415 is an atypical supergiant X-ray binary among wind-fed and disk-fed systems, showing alternate spin-up/spin-down intervals lasting on the order of tens of days. We study different torque states of OAO 1657-415 based on the spin history monitored by {\\it Fermi}/GBM, together with fluxes from {\\it Swift}/BAT and {\\it MAXI}/GSC. Its spin frequency derivatives are well correlated with {\\it Swift}/BAT fluxes during rapid spin-up episodes, anti-correlated with {\\it Swift}/BAT fluxes during rapid spin-down episodes, and not correlated in between. The orbital profile of spin-down episodes is reduced by a factor of 2 around orbital phases of 0.2 and 0.8 compared to that of spin-up episodes. The orbital hardness ratio profile of spin-down episodes is also lower than that of spin-up episodes around phases close to the mid-eclipse, implying that there is more material between the neutron star and the observer for spin-down episodes than for spin-up episodes around these phases. These results indicate that the torque state of the neutron star is connected with the material flow on orbital scale and support the retrograde/prograde disk accretion scenario for spin-down/spin-up torque reversal.

Occultation is a technique that enables image reconstruction and source identification with a non-imaging detector. Such an approach is well suited for a future survey mission in nuclear astrophysics. In particular, the Lunar Occultation Technique (LOT) utilizes the Moon as an occulting object and is the basis of a new gamma-ray survey mission concept, the Lunar OCcultation Observer (LOCO). Techniques utilizing the LOT to detect spatially extended emission, from the Galactic plane or Galactic Center region, have been developed. Given knowledge of detector position in lunar orbit, combined with lunar ephemeris and relevant coordinate transformations, occultation time series can be used to reconstruct skymaps of these extended Galactic emitters. Monte-Carlo Markov Chains (MCMC), incorporating the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm for parametric model testing, form the basis of the technique. Performance of the imaging methodology, and its application to nuclear astrophysics will be presented.

Discovery of pulsations from a number of ULXs proved that accretion onto neutron stars can produce luminosities exceeding the Eddington limit by several orders of magnitude. The conditions necessary to achieve such high luminosities as well as the exact geometry of the accretion flow in the neutron star vicinity are, however, a matter of debate. The pulse phase-resolved polarization measurements that became possible with the launch of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) can be used to determine the pulsar geometry and its orientation relative to the orbital plane. They provide an avenue to test different theoretical models of ULX pulsars. In this paper we present the results of three IXPE observations of the first Galactic ULX pulsar Swift J0243.6+6124 during its 2023 outburst. We find strong variations in the polarization characteristics with the pulsar phase. The average polarization degree increases from about 5% to 15% as the flux dropped by a factor of three in the course of the outburst. The polarization angle (PA) as a function of the pulsar phase shows two peaks in the first two observations, but changes to a characteristic sawtooth pattern in the remaining data set. This is not consistent with a simple rotating vector model. Assuming the existence of an additional constant polarized component, we were able to fit the three observations with a common rotating vector model and obtain constraints on the pulsar geometry. In particular, we find the pulsar angular momentum inclination with respect to the line of sight of 15-40 deg, the magnetic obliquity of 60-80 deg, and the pulsar spin position angle of -50 deg, which significantly differs from the constant component PA of about 10 deg. Combining these X-ray measurements with the optical PA, we find evidence for at least a 30 deg misalignment between the pulsar angular momentum and the binary orbital axis.

GX 301-2 provides a rare opportunity to study both disk and wind accretion in a same target. We report Insight-HXMT observations of the spin-up event of GX 301-2 happened in 2019 and compare with those of wind-fed state. The pulse profiles of the initial rapid spin-up period are dominated by one main peak, while those of the later slow spin-up period are composed of two similar peaks, as those of wind-fed state. These behaviors are confirmed by Fermi/GBM data, which also show that during the rapid spin-up period, the main peak increases with luminosity up to \\(8\\times10^{37}\\) erg s\\(^{-1}\\), but the faint peak keeps almost constant. The absorption column densities during the spin-up period are \\(\\sim1.5\\times10^{23}\\) cm\\(^{-2}\\), much less than those of wind-fed state at similar luminosity (\\(\\sim9\\times10^{23}\\) cm\\(^{-2}\\)), supporting the scenario that most of material is condensed into a disk during the spin-up period. We discuss possible differences between disk and wind accretion that may explain the observed different trend of pulse profiles.

RX J0440.9+4431 is an accreting X-ray pulsar (XRP) that remained relatively unexplored until recently, when major X-ray outburst activity enabled more in-depth studies. Here, we report on the discovery of \\({\\sim}0.2\\) Hz quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) from this source observed with \\(Fermi\\)-GBM. The appearance of QPOs in RX J0440.9+4431 is thricely transient, that is, QPOs appear only above a certain luminosity, only at certain pulse phases (namely corresponding to the peak of its sine-like pulse profile), and only for a few oscillations at time. We argue that this newly discovered phenomenon (appearance of thricely transient QPOs -- or ATTO) occurs if QPOs are fed through an accretion disk whose inner region viscosity is unstable to mass accretion rate and temperature variations. Such variations are triggered when the source switches to the super-critical accretion regime and the emission pattern changes. We also argue that the emission region configuration is likely responsible for the observed QPOs spin-phase dependence.

XTE J1829-098 is a transient X-ray pulsar with a period of ~7.8 s. It is a candidate Be star system, although the evidence for this is not yet definitive. We investigated the twenty-year long X-ray light curve using the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array (PCA), Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory Burst Alert Telescope (BAT), and the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI). We find that all three light curves are clearly modulated on the ~244 day orbital period previously reported from PCA monitoring observations, with outbursts confined to a narrow phase range. The light curves also show that XTE J1829-098 was in an inactive state between approximately December 2008 and April 2018 and no strong outbursts occurred. Such behavior is typical of Be X-ray binary systems, with the absence of outbursts likely related to the dissipation of the Be star's decretion disk. The mean outburst shapes can be approximated with a triangular profile and, from a joint fit of this to all three light curves, we refine the orbital period to 243.95 +/- 0.04 days. The mean outburst profile does not show any asymmetry and has a total phase duration of 0.140 +/- 0.007. However, the PCA light curve shows that there is considerable cycle-to-cycle variability of the individual outbursts. We compare the properties of XTE J1829-098 with other sources that show short phase-duration outbursts, in particular GS 1843-02 (2S 1845-024) which has a very similar orbital period, but longer pulse period, and whose orbit is known to be highly eccentric.

We present a detailed timing study of the pulse profile of Swift J0243.6+6124 with HXMT and Fermi/GBM data during its 2017 giant outburst. The double-peak profile at luminosity above \\(5\\times10^{38}\\)erg\\,s\\(^{-1}\\) is found to be 0.25 phase offset from that below \\(1.5\\times10^{38}\\)erg\\,s\\(^{-1}\\), which strongly supports for a transition from a pencil beam to a fan beam, and thus for the formation of shock dominated accretion column. During the rising stage of the high double-peak regime, the faint peak got saturated in 10-100 keV band above a luminosity of \\(L_t\\sim1.3\\times10^{39}\\)erg\\,s\\(^{-1}\\), which is coincident with sudden spectral changes of both the main and faint peaks. They imply a sudden change of emission pattern around \\(L_t\\). The spin-up rate (\\(\\dot{\\nu}\\)) is linearly correlated with luminosity (\\(L\\)) below \\(L_t\\), consistent with the prediction of a radiation pressure dominated (RPD) disk. The \\(\\dot{\\nu}-L\\) relation flattens above \\(L_t\\), indicating a less efficient transfer of angular momentum and a change of accretion disk geometry above \\(L_t\\). It is likely due to irradiation of the disk by the central accretion column and indicates significant radiation feedback before the inner disk radius reaching the spherization radius.

Since their first discovery in the late 1960s, Gamma-ray bursts have attracted an exponentially growing interest from the international community due to their central role in the most highly debated open questions of the modern research of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. These range from the intimate nuclear composition of high density material within the core of ultra-dense neuron stars, to stellar evolution via the collapse of massive stars, the production and propagation of gravitational waves, as well as the exploration of the early Universe by unveiling first stars and galaxies (assessing also their evolution and cosmic re-ionization). GRBs have stimulated in the past \\(\\sim\\)50 years the development of cutting-edge technological instruments for observations of high energy celestial sources from space, leading to the launch and successful operations of many different scientific missions (several of them still in data taking mode nowadays). In this review, we provide a brief description of the GRB-dedicated missions from space being designed and developed for the future. The list of these projects, not meant to be exhaustive, shall serve as a reference to interested readers to understand what is likely to come next to lead the further development of GRB research and associated phenomenology.

We give an overview of the science objectives and mission design of the Spectroscopic Time-Resolving Observatory for Broadband Energy X-rays (STROBE-X) observatory, which has been proposed as a NASA probe-class (~$1.5B) mission in response to the Astro2020 recommendation for an X-ray probe.