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Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are bright flashes of gamma rays coming from the cosmos. They occur roughly once per day, typically last for tens of seconds, and are the most luminous events in the universe. More than three decades after their discovery, and after pioneering advances from space and ground experiments, they still remain mysterious. The launch of the Swift and Fermi satellites in 2004 and 2008 brought in a trove of qualitatively new data. In this Review, we survey the interplay between these recent observations and the theoretical models of the prompt GRB emission and the subsequent afterglow.

X-ray binaries are composed of a normal star in orbit around a neutron star or stellar-mass black hole. Radio and x-ray observations have led to the presumption that some x-ray binaries called microquasars behave as scaled-down active galactic nuclei. Microquasars have resolved radio emission that is thought to arise from a relativistic outflow akin to active galactic nuclei jets, in which particles can be accelerated to large energies. Very high energy [gamma]-rays produced by the interactions of these particles have been observed from several active galactic nuclei. Using the High Energy Stereoscopic System, we find evidence for gamma-ray emission of >100 gigaelectron volts from a candidate microquasar, LS 5039, showing that particles are also accelerated to very high energies in these systems.

The physical nature of ultraluminous x-ray sources is uncertain. Stellar-mass black holes with beamed radiation and intermediate black holes with isotropic radiation are two plausible explanations. We discovered radio emission from an ultraluminous x-ray source in the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 5408. The x-ray, radio, and optical fluxes as well as the x-ray spectral shape are consistent with beamed relativistic jet emission from an accreting stellar black hole. If confirmed, this would suggest that the ultraluminous x-ray sources may be stellarmass rather than intermediate-mass black holes. However, interpretation of the source as a jet-producing intermediate-mass black hole cannot be ruled out at this time.

Spider pulsars are neutron stars that have a companion star in a close orbit. The companion star sheds material to the neutron star, spinning it up to millisecond rotation periods, while the orbit shortens to hours. The companion is eventually ablated and destroyed by the pulsar wind and radiation 1 , 2 . Spider pulsars are key for studying the evolutionary link between accreting X-ray pulsars and isolated millisecond pulsars, pulsar irradiation effects and the birth of massive neutron stars 3 – 6 . Black widow pulsars in extremely compact orbits (as short as 62 minutes 7 ) have companions with masses much smaller than 0.1  M ⊙ . They may have evolved from redback pulsars with companion masses of about 0.1–0.4  M ⊙ and orbital periods of less than 1 day 8 . If this is true, then there should be a population of millisecond pulsars with moderate-mass companions and very short orbital periods 9 , but, hitherto, no such system was known. Here we report radio observations of the binary millisecond pulsar PSR J1953+1844 (M71E) that show it to have an orbital period of 53.3 minutes and a companion with a mass of around 0.07  M ⊙ . It is a faint X-ray source and located 2.5 arcminutes from the centre of the globular cluster M71. PSR J1953+1844 (M71E) has an orbital period of 53.3 minutes and a companion with a mass of 0.07  M ⊙ , making it a bridging object between redbacks and black widows in the evolutionary track.

Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) is now widely used in dentistry and growing areas of medical imaging. The presence of strong metal artifacts is however a major concern of using CBCT especially in dentistry due to the presence of highly attenuating dental restorations, fixed appliances, and implants. Virtual monoenergetic images (VMIs) synthesized from dual energy CT (DECT) datasets are known to reduce metal artifacts. Although several techniques exist for DECT imaging, they in general come with significantly increased equipment cost and not available in dental clinics. The objectives of this study were to investigate the feasibility of developing a low-cost dual energy CBCT (DE-CBCT) by retrofitting a regular CBCT scanner with a carbon nanotube (CNT) x-ray source with dual focal spots and corresponding low-energy (LE) and high-energy (HE) spectral filters. A testbed with a CNT field emission x-ray source (NuRay Technology, Chang Zhou, China), a flat panel detector (Teledyne, Waterloo, Canada), and a rotating object stage was used for this feasibility study. Two distinct polychromatic x-ray spectra with the mean photon energies of 66.7keV and 86.3keV were produced at a fixed 120kVp x-ray tube voltage by using Al+Au and Al+Sn foils as the respective LE and HE filters attached to the exist window of the x-ray source. The HE filter attenuated the x-ray photons more than the LE filter. The calculated post-object air kerma rate of the HE beam was 31.7% of the LE beam. An anthropomorphic head phantom (RANDO, Nuclear Associates, Hicksville, NY) with metal beads was imaged using the testbed and the images were reconstructed using an iterative volumetric CT reconstruction algorithm. The VMIs were synthesized using an image-domain basis materials decomposition method with energy ranging from 30 to 150keV. The results were compared to the reconstructed images from a single energy clinical dental CBCT scanner (CS9300, Carestream Dental, Atlanta, GA). A significant reduction of the metal artifacts was observed in the VMI images synthesized at high energies compared to those from the same object imaged by the clinical dental CBCT scanner. The ability of the CNT x-ray source to generate the output needed to compensate the reduction of photon flux due to attenuation from the spectral filters and to maintain the CT imaging time was evaluated. The results demonstrated the feasibility of DE-CBCT imaging using the proposed approach. Metal artifact reduction was achieved in VMIs synthesized. The x-ray output needed for the proposed DE-CBCT can be generated by a fixed-anode CNT x-ray source.

Femtosecond lasers can now deliver ultrahigh intensities at focus, making it possible to induce relativistic motion of charged particles with light and opening the way to new generations of compact particle accelerators and X-ray sources. With diameters of up to tens of centimetres, ultra-intense laser beams tend to suffer from spatiotemporal distortions, that is, a spatial dependence of their temporal properties that can dramatically reduce their peak intensities. At present, however, these intense electromagnetic fields are characterized and optimized in space and time separately. Here, we present the first complete spatiotemporal experimental reconstruction of the field E ( t , r ) for a 100 TW peak-power laser, and reveal the spatiotemporal distortions that can affect such beams. This new measurement capability opens the way to in-depth characterization and optimization of ultra-intense lasers and ultimately to the advanced control of relativistic motion of matter with femtosecond laser beams structured in space–time. The complete spatiotemporal characterization of a 100-TW laser beam highlights distortions that must be taken into account for present and future generations of ultra-intense lasers.

Previous efforts at increasing spatial resolution have relied on decreasing focal spot and or detector element size. Many \"super resolution\" methods require physical movement of a component of the imaging system. This work describes a method for achieving spatial resolution on a scale smaller than the detector pixel without motion of the object or detector. We introduce a weighting of the photon energy spectrum on a length scale smaller than a single pixel using a physical filter that can be placed between the focal spot and the object, between the object and the detector, or integrated into the x-ray source or detector. We refer to the method as sub pixel encoding (SPE). We show that if one acquires multiple measurements (i.e. x-ray projections), information can be synthesized at a spatial scale defined by the spectrum modulation, not the detector element size. Specifically, if one divides a detector pixel into n sub regions, and m photon-matter interactions are present, the number of x-ray measurements needed to solve for the detector response of each sub region is mxn. We discuss realizations of SPE using multiple x-ray spectra with an energy integrating detector, a single spectra with a photon counting detector, and the single photon-matter interaction case. We demonstrate the feasibility of the approach using a simulated energy integrating detector with a detector pitch of 2 mm for 80-140 kV medical and 200-600 kV industrial applications. Phantoms used for both example SPE realization had some features only a 1 mm detector could resolve. We calculate the covariance matrix of SPE output to characterize the and noise propagation and correlation of our test examples. The mathematical foundation of SPE is provided, with details worked out for several detector types and energy ranges. Two numerical simulations were provided to demonstrate feasibility. In both the medical and industrial simulations, some phantom features were only observable with the 1 mm and SPE synthesized 2 mm detector, while the 2 mm detector was not able to visualize them. Covariance matrix analysis demonstrated negative diagonal terms for both example cases. The concept of encoding object information at a length scale smaller than a single pixel element, and then retrieving that information was introduced. SPE simultaneously allows for an increase in spatial resolution and provides \"dual energy\" like information about the underlying photon-matter interactions.

Fluctuations and stochastic transitions are ubiquitous in nanometre-scale systems, especially in the presence of disorder. However, their direct observation has so far been impeded by a seemingly fundamental, signal-limited compromise between spatial and temporal resolution. Here we develop coherent correlation imaging (CCI) to overcome this dilemma. Our method begins by classifying recorded camera frames in Fourier space. Contrast and spatial resolution emerge by averaging selectively over same-state frames. Temporal resolution down to the acquisition time of a single frame arises independently from an exceptionally low misclassification rate, which we achieve by combining a correlation-based similarity metric 1 , 2 with a modified, iterative hierarchical clustering algorithm 3 , 4 . We apply CCI to study previously inaccessible magnetic fluctuations in a highly degenerate magnetic stripe domain state with nanometre-scale resolution. We uncover an intricate network of transitions between more than 30 discrete states. Our spatiotemporal data enable us to reconstruct the pinning energy landscape and to thereby explain the dynamics observed on a microscopic level. CCI massively expands the potential of emerging high-coherence X-ray sources and paves the way for addressing large fundamental questions such as the contribution of pinning 5 – 8 and topology 9 – 12 in phase transitions and the role of spin and charge order fluctuations in high-temperature superconductivity 13 , 14 . Nanoscale magnetic fluctuations are spatiotemporally resolved beyond conventional resolution limits using coherent correlation imaging, in which frames in Fourier space are recorded and analysed using an iterative hierarchical clustering algorithm.

Solar white-light flares are characterized by an enhancement in the optical continuum, which are usually large flares (X- and M-class flares). Here, we report a small C2.3 white-light flare (SOL2022-12-20T04:10) observed by the Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory and the Chinese H α Solar Explorer (CHASE). This flare exhibits an increase of ≈ 6.4% in the photospheric Fe i line at 6569.2 Å and ≈ 3.2% in the nearby continuum. The continuum at 3600 Å also shows an enhancement of ≈ 4.7%. The white-light bright kernels are mainly located at the flare ribbons and co-spatial with nonthermal hard X-ray sources, which implies that the enhanced white-light emissions are related to nonthermal electron-beam heating. At the bright kernels, the Fe i line displays an absorption profile that has a good Gaussian shape, with a redshift up to ≈ 1.7 km s −1 , while the H α line shows an emission profile having a central reversal. The H α line profile also shows a red or blue asymmetry caused by plasma flows with a velocity of several to tens of km s −1 . It is interesting to find that the H α asymmetry is opposite at the conjugate footpoints. It is also found that the CHASE continuum increase seems to be related to the change in the photospheric magnetic field. Our study provides comprehensive characteristics of a small white-light flare that help understand the energy release process of white-light flares.

In this work, experimentally measured characteristics of a kilohertz laser‐driven Cu plasma X‐ray source that was recently commissioned at the ELI Beamlines facility are reported. The source can be driven either by an in‐house developed high‐contrast sub‐20 fs near‐infrared terawatt laser based on optical parametric chirped‐pulse amplification technology or by a more conventional Ti:sapphire laser delivering 12 mJ and 45 fs pulses. The X‐ray source parameters obtained with the two driving lasers are compared. A measured photon flux of the order up to 1012 Kα photons s−1 (4π)−1 is reported. Furthermore, experimental platforms for ultrafast X‐ray diffraction and X‐ray absorption and emission spectroscopy based on the reported source are described. A laser‐driven plasma X‐ray source with sub‐picosecond pulses at 1 kHz repetition rate for various time‐resolved experiments has been commissioned at ELI Beamlines. This article features a comprehensive overview of the driving‐laser parameters and X‐ray beam characteristics and outlines possible applications of the source.