The abundance of space instruments recently or currently in operation, increased availability of 6-8 meter class telescopes, and greatly enhanced data storage techniques have resulted in an enormous wealth of data on every type of astrophysical system that poses a challenge to researchers. For the XRBs which are highly variable the concurrent presence of the RXTE/ASM that continuously measures their X-ray spectral states invites a new and innovative program to harness the available information to facilitate detailed studies of individual systems as well as comparative studies between classes of systems. Instead of having to go to a dozen databases, overcome the potential barrier of reducing the data, only to find that the available spectra are not suitable for their science object, the researcher will be able to go to one site and actually see the spectra energy distribution for a source, with the X-ray spectral states identified for ease of comparison. This will enable them to quickly decide which data are worth putting in effort to extract and further analyze. Research using this database will enable the separation of stellar, wind, disk, and jet components in XRBs, determination of the density, ionization, and departure from sphericity of the winds from massive systems, modeling of long-term variations, and inference of the geometry of the geometry of the emitting region.

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This page last updated April 28 2009