The legacy of Stripe 82X in the next decade of XMM‐Newton

Abstract

X-ray surveys provide the most efficient mechanism for unveiling the growth and evolution of super-massive black holes across the Universe. With the wide-area "Stripe 82X" survey (∼31 deg 2 ), we are discovering the rare, high-luminosity, high-redshift population missed in smaller area surveys, in a legacy field with a rich investment of multiwavelength coverage necessary for characterizing the X-ray sources detected. Though this survey will provide much insight into the growth of black holes and their co-evolution with their host galaxies, more area is needed to uncover a statistical sampling of the most distant active galactic nucleus (AGN; z > 3) at the highest luminosities and search for signatures of direct-collapse super-massive black holes in the unresolved X-ray emission. Such a program will require a large investment of XMM-Newton observing time, which is a challenge in the current time allocation landscape. Indeed, challenges for both XMM-Newton and the next generation of telescopes in the coming decade include accommodating large time requests for observations necessary for advancing the field, devising best effort practices for the next generation of multiwavelength missions to efficiently return the best science in datasets orders of magnitude larger than what we have now (which can be informed by lessons learned from current XMM-Newton programs); and making ancillary value-added data products available to the community to truly harness the power of what X-rays and XMM-Newton has to offer.