The search for diffuse non-thermal inverse Compton (IC) emission from galaxy clusters at hard X-ray energies has been undertaken with many instruments, with most detections being either of low significance or controversial. Because all prior telescopes sensitive at E > 10 keV do not focus light and have degree-scale fields of view, their backgrounds are both high and difficult to characterize. The associated uncertainties result in lower sensitivity to IC emission and a greater chance of false detection. In this work, we present 266 ks NuSTAR observations of the Bullet cluster, which is detected in the energy range 3-30 keV. NuSTAR's unprecedented hard X-ray focusing capability largely eliminates confusion between diffuse IC and point sources; however, at the highest energies, the background still dominates and must be well understood. To this end, we have developed a complete background model constructed of physically inspired components constrained by extragalactic survey field observations, the specific parameters of which are derived locally from data in non-source regions of target observations. Applying the background model to the Bullet cluster data, we find that the spectrum is well-but not perfectly-described as an isothermal plasma with kT = 14.2 ± 0.2 keV. To slightly improve the fit, a second temperature component is added, which appears to account for lower temperature emission from the cool core, pushing the primary component to kT ∼ 15.3 keV. We see no convincing need to invoke an IC component to describe the spectrum of the Bullet cluster, and instead argue that it is dominated at all energies by emission from purely thermal gas. The conservatively derived 90% upper limit on the IC flux of 1.1 × 10 −12 erg s −1 cm −2 (50-100 keV), implying a lower limit on B 0.2 μG, is barely consistent with detected fluxes previously reported. In addition to discussing the possible origin of this discrepancy, we remark on the potential implications of this analysis for the prospects for detecting IC in galaxy clusters in the future.

A3667 is the archetype of a merging cluster with radio relics. The northwest (NW) radio relic is the brightest cluster relic or halo known and is believed to be due to a strong merger shock. We have observed the NW relic for ∼40 ks of net XMM-Newton time. We observe a global decline of temperature across the relic from 6 to 1 keV, similar to the Suzaku results. Our new observations reveal a sharp change of both temperature and surface brightness near the position of the relic. The increased X-ray emission on the relic can be equivalently well described by either a thermal or nonthermal spectral model. The parameters of the thermal model are consistent with a Mach number M ∼ 2 shock and a shock speed of ∼1200 km s −1 . The energy content of the relativistic particles in the radio relic can be explained if they are (re)-accelerated by the shock with an efficiency of ∼0.2%. Comparing the limit on the inverse Compton X-ray emission with the measured radio synchrotron emission, we set a lower limit to the magnetic field in the relic of 3 μG. If the emission from the relic is nonthermal, this lower limit is in fact the required magnetic field.

The brightest cluster radio halo known resides in the Coma cluster of galaxies. The relativistic electrons producing this diffuse synchrotron emission should also produce inverse Compton emission that becomes competitive with thermal emission from the ICM at hard X-ray energies. Thus far, claimed detections of this emission in Coma are controversial (e.g., Fusco-Femiano et al. 2004;Rossetti & Molendi 2004). We present a Suzaku HXD-PIN observation of the Coma cluster in order to nail down its non-thermal hard X-ray content. The contribution of thermal emission to the HXD-PIN spectrum is constrained by simultaneously fitting thermal and non-thermal models to it and a spatially equivalent spectrum derived from an XMM-Newton mosaic of the Coma field (Schuecker et al. 2004). We fail to find statistically significant evidence for non-thermal emission in the spectra, which are better described by only a single or multi-temperature model for the ICM. Including systematic uncertainties, we derive a 90% upper limit on the flux of non-thermal emission of 6.0 × 10 −12 erg s −1 cm −2 (20-80 keV, for Γ = 2.0), which implies a lower limit on the cluster-averaged magnetic field of B > 0.15 µG. Our flux upper limit is 2.5× lower than the detected non-thermal flux from RXTE (Rephaeli & Gruber 2002) and BeppoSAX (Fusco-Femiano et al. 2004). However, if the non-thermal hard X-ray emission in Coma is more spatially extended then the observed radio halo, the Suzaku HXD-PIN may miss some fraction of the emission. A detailed investigation indicates that ∼50-67% of the emission might go undetected, which could make our limit consistent with Rephaeli & Gruber (2002) and Fusco-Femiano et al. (2004). The thermal interpretation of the hard Coma spectrum is consistent with recent analyses of INTEGRAL (Eckert et al. 2007a) and Swift (Okajima et al. 2008; Ajello et al. 2009) data.

Prior to the launch of NuSTAR, it was not feasible to spatially resolve the hard (E > 10 keV) emission from galaxies beyond the Local Group. The combined NuSTAR dataset, comprised of three ∼ 165 ks observations, allows spatial characterization of the hard X-ray emission in the galaxy NGC 253 for the first time. As a follow up to our initial study of its nuclear region, we present the first results concerning the full galaxy from simultaneous NuSTAR, Chandra, and VLBA monitoring of the local starburst galaxy NGC 253. Above ∼ 10 keV, nearly all the emission is concentrated within 100 ′′ of the galactic center, produced almost exclusively by three nuclear sources, an off-nuclear ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX), and a pulsar candidate that we identify for the first time in these observations. We detect 21 distinct sources in energy bands up to 25 keV, mostly consisting of intermediate state black hole X-ray binaries. The global X-ray emission of the galaxydominated by the off-nuclear ULX and nuclear sources, which are also likely ULXs -falls steeply (photon index ∼ > 3) above 10 keV, consistent with other NuSTAR-observed ULXs, and no significant excess above the background is detected at E > 40 keV. We report upper limits on diffuse inverse Compton emission for a range of spatial models. For the most extended morphologies considered, these hard X-ray constraints disfavor a dominant inverse Compton component to explain the γ-ray emission detected with Fermi and H.E.S.S. If NGC 253 is typical of starburst galaxies at higher redshift, their contribution to the E > 10 keV cosmic X-ray background is < 1%.

We present nearly simultaneous Chandra and NuSTAR observations of two actively star-forming galaxies within 50 Mpc: NGC 3256 and NGC 3310. Both galaxies are significantly detected by both Chandra and NuSTAR, which together provide the first-ever spectra of these two galaxies spanning 0.3-30 keV. The X-ray emission from both galaxies is spatially resolved by Chandra; we find that hot gas dominates the E < 1-3 keV emission while ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) provide majority contributions to the emission at E > 1-3 keV. The NuSTAR galaxy-wide spectra of both galaxies follow steep power-law distributions with Γ ≈ 2.6 at E > 5-7 keV. Using new and archival Chandra data, we search for signatures of heavily obscured or low luminosity AGN. We find that both NGC 3256 and NGC 3310 have X-ray detected sources coincident with nuclear regions; however, the steep NuSTAR spectra of both galaxies restricts these sources to be either low luminosity AGN (L 2−10 keV /L Edd < ∼ 10 −5 ) or non-AGN in nature (e.g., ULXs or crowded X-ray sources that reach L 2−10 keV ∼ 10 40 erg s −1 cannot be ruled out). Combining our constraints on the 0.3-30 keV spectra of NGC 3256 and NGC 3310 with equivalent measurements for nearby star-forming galaxies M83 and NGC 253, we analyze the star-formation rate (SFR) normalized spectra of these starburst galaxies. The spectra of all four galaxies show sharply declining power-law slopes at energies above 3-6 keV primarily due to ULX populations. Our observations therefore constrain the average spectral shape of galaxy-wide populations of luminous accreting binaries (i.e., ULXs). Interestingly, despite a completely different galaxy sample selection, emphasizing here a range of SFRs and stellar masses, these properties are similar to those of super-Eddington accreting ULXs that have been studied individually in a targeted NuSTAR ULX program. We also find that NGC 3310 exhibits a factor of ≈3-10 elevation of X-ray emission over the other star-forming galaxies due to a corresponding overabundance of ULXs. We argue that the excess of ULXs in NGC 3310 is most likely explained by the relatively low metallicity of the young stellar population in this galaxy, a property that is expected to produce an excess of luminous X-ray binaries for a given SFR.

Sensitive surveys of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) will detect thousands of galaxy clusters via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. Two SZ observables, the central or maximum and integrated Comptonization parameters y max and Y , relate in a simple way to the total cluster mass, which allow the construction of mass functions (MFs) that can be used to estimate cosmological parameters such as the ratio of the average matter density to the critical density Ω M , the normalization of the spectrum of initial density perturbations σ 8 , and the dark energy equation of state parameter w. However, clusters form from the mergers of smaller structures, events that can disrupt the equilibrium of intracluster gas upon which SZ-M relations rely. From a set of N-body/hydrodynamical simulations of binary cluster mergers, we calculate the evolution of Y and y max over the course of merger events and find that both parameters are transiently "boosted," primarily during the first core passage. We then use a semi-analytic technique developed by Randall et al. (2002) to estimate the effect of merger boosts on the distribution functions YF and yF of Y and y max , respectively, via cluster merger histories determined from extended Press-Schechter (PS) merger trees. The scatter in the Y -M and y max -M relations from merger boosts are found to be ∼ 2% and 25-30% respectively. To determine Ω M , σ 8 , and w, the boosted and nonboosted YFs and yFs are fit with analytic PS distributions as a function of redshift. We find that boosts do not induce an overall systematic effect on YFs, and the values of Ω M , σ 8 , and w (assumed constant) were returned to within 2% of values expected from the nonboosted YFs. The boosted yFs are significantly biased, however, causing Ω M to be underestimated by 15-45%, σ 8 to be overestimated by 10-25%, and w to be pushed to more negative values by 25-45%. We also fit YF as a function of redshift to cosmological models in which the dark energy parameter w varied with redshift to assess the effects of mergers on the inferred change in w with redshift. The values of Ω M , σ 8 , and the low-redshift value of w (w 0 ) were again reproduced to within 2%. For the largest change in w with z, which occurred between z = 0 and z = 1 for the models assumed, it was increased by about 0.04. Although this is twice as large as the merger effect on a constant value of w, it is still reasonably modest. We confirm that the integrated SZ effect, Y , is far more robust to mergers than y max , as previously reported by Motl et al. (2005) and similarly found for the X-ray equivalent Y X Poole et al. 2007), and we conclude that Y is the superior choice for a mass proxy when using SZ observations of galaxy clusters to constrain cosmological parameters.

We present NuSTAR high-energy X-ray observations of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN)/supernova remnant G21.5−0.9. We detect integrated emission from the nebula up to ∼40 keV, and resolve individual spatial features over a broad X-ray band for the first time. The morphology seen by NuSTAR agrees well with that seen by XMM-Newton and Chandra below 10 keV. At high energies, NuSTAR clearly detects non-thermal emission up to ∼20 keV that extends along the eastern and northern rim of the supernova shell. The broadband images clearly demonstrate that X-ray emission from the North Spur and Eastern Limb results predominantly from non-thermal processes. We detect a break in the spatially integrated X-ray spectrum at ∼9 keV that cannot be reproduced by current spectral energy distribution models, implying either a more complex electron injection spectrum or an additional process such as diffusion compared to what has been considered in previous work. We use spatially resolved maps to derive an energy-dependent cooling length scale, L(E) ∝ E m with m = −0.21 ± 0.01. We find this to be inconsistent with the model for the morphological evolution with energy described by Kennel & Coroniti. This value, along with the observed steepening in power-law index between radio and X-ray, can be quantitatively explained as an energy-loss spectral break in the simple scaling model of Reynolds, assuming particle advection dominates over diffusion. This interpretation requires a substantial departure from spherical magnetohydrodynamic, magnetic-flux-conserving outflow, most plausibly in the form of turbulent magnetic-field amplification.

Deep (103 ks) Chandra observations of Abell 665 have revealed rich structures in this merging galaxy cluster, including a strong shock and two cold fronts. The newly discovered shock has a Mach number of M = 3.0 ± 0.6, propagating in front of a cold disrupted cloud. This makes Abell 665 the second cluster where a strong merger shock of M ≈ 3 has been detected, after the Bullet cluster. The shock velocity from jump conditions is consistent with (2.7 ± 0.7) × 10 3 km sec −1 . The new data also reveal a prominent southern cold front, with potentially heated gas ahead of it. Abell 665 also hosts a giant radio halo. There is a hint of diffuse radio emission extending to the shock at the north, which needs to be examined with better radio data. This new strong shock provides a great opportunity to study the re-acceleration model with the X-ray and radio data combined.