Probing the star-forming environment of GRB across cosmic ages with high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy: From \textit{{XMM-Newton}}/RGS and \textit{XRISM}/Resolve to \textit{NewAthena}/X-IFU

Aishwarya Linesh Thakur; Alfredo Luminari; Fabrizio Nicastro; Luigi Piro; Yair Krongold

REVIEW

Probing the star-forming environment of GRB across cosmic ages with high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy: From \textit{{XMM-Newton}}/RGS and \textit{XRISM}/Resolve to \textit{NewAthena}/X-IFU

Luigi Piro, Aishwarya Linesh Thakur, Alfredo Luminari, Fabrizio Nicastro, Yair Krongold

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Submitted 23 Oct 2026 · 71 references

Pith's verdict: A careful capability study whose load-bearing atomic-data assumption—equal-weight Fe L multiplets—deserves scrutiny, but the XRISM/X-IFU forecasts and PopIII diagnostic make it worth publishing.

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arXiv ID2610.32786 (version 1)

Pith ID7P62FMPM, Pith's permanent record of this paper and its review

CitationAishwarya Linesh Thakur, Alfredo Luminari, Fabrizio Nicastro, Luigi Piro, Yair Krongold. "Probing the star-forming environment of GRB across cosmic ages with high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy: From \textit{{XMM-Newton}}/RGS and \textit{XRISM}/Resolve to \textit{NewAthena}/X-IFU." arXiv:2610.32786 (2026). https://pith.science/paper/7P62FMPM

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Editor's note

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Bottom line: this is a capable capability study, and the single 3σ RGS detection is the least interesting part of it. The genuinely useful content is the quantitative forecast of what Resolve and X-IFU could do with GRB afterglows, plus the PopII/PopIII abundance diagnostic.

What is new: the authors take their TEPID time-dependent photoionization model, expand the line database, search RGS spectra for exactly the lines the model predicts (prior blind searches had found nothing), and produce the first concrete Resolve/X-IFU projections for these systems, including a Fe/Si/S ratio test for PopIII-enriched media. That is a solid application of an existing framework, not a new framework.

Credit where due: the statistics are handled more carefully than most papers at this significance level. The null-model simulations and the free-redshift scan (which recovers z=0.540±0.003, matching optical) are the right checks. The paper also explicitly flags its own weak spots: metallicity unconstrained at z=7, H/He absorption marginal at low z, low-density PopII media mimicking pristine gas, and odd-even abundance lines falling outside the band. That honesty is real.

Soft spots, in proportion. The detection rests on one burst, GRB 090618, at ~3σ combined from several weak lines. That is what the paper claims, and it is fine. But the line template comes from the same model family used to fit the continuum, and, more concretely, Section 2.1 states that the database keeps ground-state L-S multiplets "assuming that they all contribute equally." For Fe L-shell lines that is a strong approximation: within-multiplet oscillator strengths and wavelengths are not equal, and the 0.55–0.80 keV band where the detection is concentrated is exactly where the Fe XX–XXII lines sit. This assumption is checkable now with existing atomic data and should be checked before anyone builds on the 3σ. It is not a reason to dismiss the paper; it is a reason to read the detection as tentative.

The X-IFU simulations are recoveries of the same model, so the quoted errors (0.05 dex, ~10% abundances) are upper bounds on precision, not independent validation. The forecasts are still worth having for planning, but they are conditional on TEPID's atomic data and geometry.

One reproducibility gap: TEPID and the line database are not public. For a paper this dependent on a specific line list, releasing the code or at least the line table would materially raise its value.

Who it is for: X-ray spectroscopists planning TOO programs on XRISM and NewAthena, and anyone working on GRB environments. It deserves a serious referee and should not be desk rejected. My recommendation: send it to review, ask that the equal-weight multiplet approximation be tested against detailed atomic data, and request a clear statement on code and data availability.

What would settle it

Observe the next bright afterglow (fluence $\gtrsim 5\times10^{-7}$ erg cm$^{-2}$, $z \lesssim 1$) with XRISM/Resolve as a target of opportunity and look for the TEPID-predicted Fe K lines, whose three strongest components sum to a joint detection significance of about 3.6 for a burst like GRB 221009A: a coherent pattern at the optical redshift would confirm the line list, while its absence at that sensitivity would show the model overpredicts the absorption. A second, archival check is to repeat the GRB 090618 multi-line search in the other bright RGS afterglows with the redshift left free; if the full line pattern never reappears at any burst's optical redshift, the single $\approx 3\sigma$ result remains consistent with a fluctuation.

Referee report

Significance

If the TEPID line list is physically reliable, the central proposition is significant: high-resolution X-ray absorption spectroscopy would become the only direct probe of the 1-100 pc circumburst medium, and X-IFU could provide X-ray-only redshifts and abundance-based discrimination between pristine, Pop III-enriched, and Pop II-enriched environments. The paper deserves credit for careful statistical practice: the 3σ claim is presented as combined evidence from several weak lines, supported by 10^4 null simulations and a free-redshift check, and limitations such as the z=7 metallicity difficulty and the low-density Pop II mimicking pristine gas are stated explicitly. The forecast tables and rate estimates are useful and tied to specific instrument responses. The main caveat is that the entire pipeline inherits an approximate atomic line database, and the simulation exercises are largely self-consistency tests of that same template rather than independent validations.

Major objections (3)

[Section 2.1 / Section 3.1.2] The sentence "Of these transitions, we only consider those starting from the ground-state L-S multiplets, assuming that they all contribute equally" is the load-bearing atomic assumption. For Fe L-shell transitions, multiplet wavelengths and radiative rates are not equal, so an equal-weight template can systematically shift or broaden the predicted absorption pattern in exactly the 0.55-0.80 keV region where the GRB 090618 evidence (Ne IX, Ne X, Fe XX-Fe XXII) is concentrated. The reported ΔC=7.5 and null probability p=1.5e-3 in Section 3.1.2 are defined relative to this template, so the detection significance is not robust to the approximation as it stands. Please recompute the RGS search and the X-IFU forecasts with full multiplet line data from an independent atomic database, or at minimum perturb the template and show that the 3σ evidence, the z=0.540 minimum, and the abundance errors in Table 2 are unchanged.
[Section 4 / Table 2] The X-IFU spectra are generated with fakeit using the XMM-PN best-fit TEPID parameters and then refitted with the same TEPID model, so the quoted precision on density, size, redshift, metallicity, and abundances, as well as the Pop III Fe upper limit of <0.06, measures the internal consistency of the fitting machinery rather than the accuracy of the physical model. The paper should state this conditional nature explicitly and, ideally, inject spectra produced by an independent photoionization code or with a perturbed line list to quantify systematic errors. This matters because the same line list also generated the claimed RGS detection.
[Section 3.1.2] The p=1.5e-3 null probability is computed for lines placed at the fixed optical redshift, while the free-redshift scan is used as supportive evidence that a single deep minimum exists at z=0.540. Because the scan shown in Fig. 4 spans a broad redshift range, the experiment-wide false-alarm probability is not quantified; either include the redshift search in the null simulations or state clearly that the 3σ significance applies a priori at the known redshift and treat the redshift agreement as a separate, qualitative corroboration.

Minor objections (4)

[Fig. 3 caption] The caption notes that dips in the continuum are instrumental; since the detected lines are weak (EW~1-3 eV), please verify explicitly that none of the ten fitted RGS line positions coincides with a known RGS instrumental feature or chip gap.
[Sections 2.1 and 4.3] Section 4.3 says TEPID was updated to include odd-atomic-number heavy elements as described in Section 2.1, but Section 2.1 describes a general abundance-threshold expansion; please clarify what is specific to the Pop III calculation.
[References] The reference for Luminari et al. 2026 is listed without journal or status; please mark it as in preparation if that is the case, and check other entries without publication data, such as Rodi & Natalucci 2025.
[Table 2 and Appendix captions] There are several typographical glitches to correct, including 'AS i' for A_Si in Table 2, 'PopIII-enriched PopII GRB' in the captions of Figs. A.17-A.18, and 'Tab..A.1' in Section 4.

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The paper

The paper claims

Narrow X-ray absorption lines reveal the star-forming gas within ~100 pc of gamma-ray bursts, at ~3σ in GRB 090618, and next-generation spectrometers can read its density, size, redshift, and chemistry out to $z=7$.

The reading

Long gamma-ray bursts explode inside dense star-forming clouds, and the burst's own radiation ionizes the surrounding gas so strongly that the inner ~100 pc of the cloud is invisible to optical and infrared spectroscopy. The paper argues that narrow X-ray absorption lines, predicted by a time-dependent photoionization model that tracks how the burst's flash strips electrons from the gas, are the only window onto this region. It reports $\approx 3\sigma$ combined evidence for such lines, dominated by highly ionized Fe L transitions, in the archival XMM-Newton RGS spectrum of GRB 090618 at $z=0.54$, with the line pattern recovered at the burst's optical redshift. It then simulates that XRISM/Resolve can detect Fe K lines in a few bright nearby afterglows per year, while NewAthena/X-IFU could measure the absorber's density, size, redshift, metallicity, and Si/S/Fe abundances out to $z=7$. If correct, X-ray spectroscopy becomes the sole direct probe of the circumburst star-forming medium and a source of redshifts for the roughly half of GRBs that are optically dark.

What carries the argument

The load-bearing object is TEPID (Time-Evolving PhotoIonisation Device), a code that computes the ionization structure of gas illuminated by a rapidly varying source, here a GRB light curve, including the radial stratification of ionization that single-zone equilibrium models omit. For this paper its atomic database was expanded to every element more abundant than $10^{-7}$, adding photoionization cross-sections from Cloudy, Auger probabilities, an XSTAR-based list of ground-state L-S multiplet transitions, and analytic Voigt profiles for the line shapes. TEPID is what converts the burst fluence and the absorber's density, size, and abundances into concrete predictions for line energies and equivalent widths, so it carries the RGS search, the XRISM sensitivity estimates, and every X-IFU simulation and forecast in the paper.

Extended reading notes

Core claim

The central claim is that the gas within roughly 1-100 pc of a long GRB leaves a measurable, uniquely informative X-ray absorption-line fingerprint. Equilibrium photoionization models fail on this gas because the burst deposits most of its ionizing fluence in the first $10^2$-$10^3$ seconds while recombination takes years, so the absorber is far from equilibrium and stratified in ionization with distance; the TEPID model captures this and predicts a rich ensemble of narrow lines, with equivalent width $\approx 1$-$10$ eV, spanning He-like carbon to H-like iron. In the only archival case with enough RGS signal, GRB 090618, adding the ten strongest predicted lines to the continuum fit improves it by $\Delta C = 7.5$, a chance probability of $1.5\times10^{-3}$ ($\approx 3\sigma$), and freeing the redshift yields a single minimum at $z = 0.540 \pm 0.003$, matching the optical value. Simulated X-IFU observations recover the absorber density and size to $\approx 0.05$ dex, the redshift to a relative error $\lesssim 10^{-3}$, metallicity to $\approx 10\%$ at $z \lesssim 3$, and individual Si, S, and Fe columns to $\approx 10$-$30\%$. At high redshift the same spectra separate pristine gas (H and He only), Pop II-enriched gas, and Pop III-enriched gas, the last showing Si and S lines with Fe/(Si,S) $\lesssim 0.15$ rather than the near-unity Pop II ratio.

Load-bearing premise

The line list, the $\approx 3\sigma$ detection claim, and all XRISM and X-IFU forecasts presuppose that the real circumburst gas behaves like the TEPID absorber: a single stratified zone with solar abundances, ground-state L-S line opacities from the adopted atomic database, and the fitted density and size, and for now the only empirical check is the GRB 090618 pattern fitted with the model's line pattern fixed.

Editorial extensions

If this is right

X-ray spectroscopy becomes the only direct probe of the 1-100 pc circumburst region, which optical and infrared absorption cannot reach because the GRB over-ionizes it.
X-ray-only redshifts become feasible for the roughly half of GRBs that are optically dark, at relative precision $\lesssim 10^{-3}$, removing a selection bias from the GRB redshift sample.
A dedicated X-IFU target-of-opportunity program could accumulate up to about 200 afterglow spectra in four years, enabling population studies of GRB environments from $z\approx 0$ to $z=7$.
Absorber density and size are recovered to about 0.05 dex, placing each burst's medium on the density-size locus of star-forming regions rather than of diffuse interstellar gas.
Pristine, Pop II-enriched, and Pop III-enriched media are spectrally separable, so high-redshift afterglows can test whether the chemical signatures of the first stars survive around later explosions.

Reading between the lines

Editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

If the line pattern in GRB 090618 survives a blind re-analysis, the same search could be run on the hundreds of GRB afterglows already in the XMM-Newton and Chandra archives, turning TEPID's predictions into a statistical test without waiting for new missions.
The Pop III discriminator inherits the nucleosynthesis assumption that top-heavy first stars suppress iron; cross-checking the X-ray abundance pattern against optical/IR host-galaxy metallicity on the same bursts would show whether an observed Fe deficiency traces the stellar population or just a metal-poor sight line.
The regime in which an ionized Pop II absorber mimics pristine gas at $\log n \lesssim 2$ cm$^{-3}$ is a single-epoch spectral degeneracy; a second observation later in the afterglow would break it because the recombination timescale depends on density.
Applying the same TEPID machinery to short GRBs would test whether the multi-ionization line pattern is specific to massive-star progenitors or a generic property of dense gas around compact-object mergers.

Original abstract

Optical and infrared GRB absorption spectroscopy provides valuable insight into host-galaxy properties across cosmic time. However, the star-forming region embedding the progenitor, on scales $\lesssim 100~\mathrm{pc}$ is heavily ionized by the GRB emission, making X-ray spectroscopy the sole probe of its physical and chemical conditions. We characterize the GRB-embedding medium as a function of progenitor type and cosmic epoch via high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy. We extend our study to high-redshift GRBs to evaluate how effectively X-ray absorption signatures can distinguish between pristine, Pop~III-, and Pop~II-enriched environments. Using the time-dependent photoionization code \texttt{TEPID}, we self-consistently calculate the ionization structure of the absorber, the energies and the strengths of the resulting absorption lines. We analyze a flux-selected sample of GRBs showing strong evidence for time-dependent photoionization, and search for predicted narrow features in the RGS spectra. We also assess the performance of \textit{XRISM}/Resolve and \textit{NewAthena}/X-IFU in detecting these features. In the single archival case with sufficient RGS signal-to-noise ratio (GRB~090618 at $z=0.54$), we find $\approx 3\sigma$ combined evidence for narrow, highly ionized Fe~L absorption lines. For bright nearby GRBs, \textit{XRISM}/Resolve can detect Fe~K absorption lines even in its current gate-valve-closed configuration ($\sim 3$ expected events/yr). \textit{NewAthena}/X-IFU will enable systematic population studies of GRB environments, delivering redshifts with precision comparable to optical/IR spectroscopy, unaffected by dust obscuration and Ly-$\alpha$ forest absorption. Crucially, it will precisely diagnose the density, size, metallicity, and abundance patterns, ultimately revealing whether high-$z$ GRBs originate in pristine, Pop~III-, or Pop~II-enriched media.

The compiled record

The paper's own sentences, arranged, kept beside the review and separate from it. Each label is drawn from a closed vocabulary; the number beside it is the probability the classifier gave that label. Numbers in the tables are the authors', checked by code. No sentence in this record was written by a model.

Compiled by classifier-1.13.0 via TypeSafe API, question bank abstract-p1-20260923, 2026-10-26: 1 request, 8,656 input tokens.

What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.06 · states limitation 0.79 · human participants 0.01 · controlled comparison 0.10 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.98 · compares with prior results 0.61 · mentions code or data availability 0.03.

The abstract, sentence by sentence

arXiv listing abstract v1. Results and the main claim are underlined; show every role.

Optical and infrared GRB absorption spectroscopy provides valuable insight into host-galaxy properties across cosmic time. However, the star-forming region embedding the progenitor, on scales $\lesssim 100~\mathrm{pc}$ is heavily ionized by the GRB emission, making X-ray spectroscopy the sole probe of its physical and chemical conditions. We characterize the GRB-embedding medium as a function of progenitor type and cosmic epoch via high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy. We extend our study to high-redshift GRBs to evaluate how effectively X-ray absorption signatures can distinguish between pristine, Pop~III-, and Pop~II-enriched environments. Using the time-dependent photoionization code \texttt{TEPID}, we self-consistently calculate the ionization structure of the absorber, the energies and the strengths of the resulting absorption lines. We analyze a flux-selected sample of GRBs showing strong evidence for time-dependent photoionization, and search for predicted narrow features in the RGS spectra. We also assess the performance of \textit{XRISM}/Resolve and \textit{NewAthena}/X-IFU in detecting these features. In the single archival case with sufficient RGS signal-to-noise ratio (GRB~090618 at $z=0.54$), we find $\approx 3\sigma$ combined evidence for narrow, highly ionized Fe~L absorption lines. For bright nearby GRBs, \textit{XRISM}/Resolve can detect Fe~K absorption lines even in its current gate-valve-closed configuration ($\sim 3$ expected events/yr). \textit{NewAthena}/X-IFU will enable systematic population studies of GRB environments, delivering redshifts with precision comparable to optical/IR spectroscopy, unaffected by dust obscuration and Ly-$\alpha$ forest absorption. Crucially, it will precisely diagnose the density, size, metallicity, and abundance patterns, ultimately revealing whether high-$z$ GRBs originate in pristine, Pop~III-, or Pop~II-enriched media.

background contribution method result interpretation main claim

What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#	sentence	role	the authors' own work	states the main conclusion	strength
s0	Optical and infrared GRB absorption spectroscopy provides valuable insight into host-galaxy properties across cosmic time.	background 1.00	0.06	0.02	asserted 0.98
s1	However, the star-forming region embedding the progenitor, on scales $\lesssim 100~\mathrm{pc}$ is heavily ionized by the GRB emission, making X-ray spectroscopy the sole probe of its physical and chemical conditions.	gap 0.57	0.08	0.06	asserted 1.00
s2	We characterize the GRB-embedding medium as a function of progenitor type and cosmic epoch via high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy.	contribution 1.00	0.85	0.06	asserted 0.96
s3	We extend our study to high-redshift GRBs to evaluate how effectively X-ray absorption signatures can distinguish between pristine, Pop~III-, and Pop~II-enriched environments.	contribution 0.99	0.69	0.05	asserted 0.51
s4	Using the time-dependent photoionization code \texttt{TEPID}, we self-consistently calculate the ionization structure of the absorber, the energies and the strengths of the resulting absorption lines.	method 1.00	0.94	0.03	asserted 0.99
s5	We analyze a flux-selected sample of GRBs showing strong evidence for time-dependent photoionization, and search for predicted narrow features in the RGS spectra.	method 0.66	0.93	0.04	asserted 0.96
s6	We also assess the performance of \textit{XRISM}/Resolve and \textit{NewAthena}/X-IFU in detecting these features.	method 0.56	0.86	0.03	asserted 0.73
s7	In the single archival case with sufficient RGS signal-to-noise ratio (GRB~090618 at $z=0.54$), we find $\approx 3\sigma$ combined evidence for narrow, highly ionized Fe~L absorption lines.	result 1.00	0.95	0.14	asserted 0.93
s8	For bright nearby GRBs, \textit{XRISM}/Resolve can detect Fe~K absorption lines even in its current gate-valve-closed configuration ($\sim 3$ expected events/yr).	result 0.92	0.64	0.06	asserted 0.66
s9	\textit{NewAthena}/X-IFU will enable systematic population studies of GRB environments, delivering redshifts with precision comparable to optical/IR spectroscopy, unaffected by dust obscuration and Ly-$\alpha$ forest absorption.	future work 0.55	0.19	0.31	asserted 0.86
s10	Crucially, it will precisely diagnose the density, size, metallicity, and abundance patterns, ultimately revealing whether high-$z$ GRBs originate in pristine, Pop~III-, or Pop~II-enriched media.	interpretation 0.50	0.17	0.60	asserted 0.89

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: simulation study 0.74 · evidence from analysis of existing data 0.82.

What was examined, and what was not

sources read

arXiv listing abstract v1

not examined

full text
figures and tables
references and citing sentences
relations to other papers

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P abstract

not run

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Every quoted sentence on this record is the authors'. Every label is from Pith's closed vocabulary, with the probability shown beside it. Every number in the measurements table is the authors', checked by code. Record as JSON

Figures

**Figure 1.** TEPID model spectrum for the best-fit parameters of GRB 090618. To emphasize the richness of the metal lines present in the spectrum, we have removed the Galactic column (5.95×1020cm−2 ), with each individual transition having an observed equivalent width larger than 0.5 eV marked in green. The inset panel zooms-in on the 0.6 - 0.7 keV range, where we can see multiple Fe-L shell transitions

**Figure 2.** Rest-frame energy versus rest-frame equivalent width for the four strongest absorption lines estimated using the per-GRB best-fit TEPID parameters of the Paper I sample: GRB 060729 (dark blue), GRB 061121 (orange), GRB 080411 (green), GRB 090618 (red), GRB 120711A (magenta), GRB 221009A (cyan). Different symbols plot the absorption lines for silicon (stars), sulfur (diamonds), iron L-shell (triangles) and iron K-shell (circles) Finally, our spectral interface between TEPID and a fitting package (PHASE; Krongold et al. 2003) now includes analytically-computed Voigt profiles…

**Figure 3.** RGS1+2 combined count spectrum of GRB 090618 in the 0.55- 0.90 keV range. The green solid line shows the best-fit continuum, while the red solid line includes the lines. The most prominent are identified with arrows, which shows that the improvement in the fit is driven by the combined detection of multiple transitions. A plot for the full fitted range of the RGS (0.33-2.5 keV) is included in the Appendix (Fig. A.1). Note that the dips present in the continuum are instrumental features. We have then considered GRB 060729, the other burst that displays a strong preference for the…

**Figure 7.** Cumulative distribution function of the observed fluences in the Swift population of GRBs with known redshifts. From lighter to darker colors, we estimate the fluence starting from 4h post-GRB upto 24h post-GRB. The solid line shows the fluence obtained in a 50 ksec exposure, instead the dashed line show the fluence obtained in a 100 ksec exposure

**Figure 8.** XIFU simulated spectrum for GRB 090618, assuming the bestfit parameters obtained from the XMM-PN fit. The spectrum has been dynamically rebinned to improve the visibility of individual line features. Individual lines having an observed equivalent width higher than 0.5 eV are marked with vertical dashed green lines. The bottom panel plots the residuals of the lines against the continuum. 4. From popII to popIII environments with NewAthena Thanks to the combination of the high energy resolution and low background enabled by the non-dispersive detector of the XIFU microcalorimenter…

**Figure 9.** Contours of size vs density estimated by fitting the XMM-PN spectra of the Paper I sample of GRBs. Plotted for comparison are the densities and sizes of gravitationally bound structures in the Universe in increasing order of size: Clusters inside star-forming regions (brown); Galactic (filled (uniform dense gas filling factor) and open grey points (dense gas filling factor of 0.3) and extragalactic (filled blue points) starforming regions; globular cluster medium (light blue circles); the interstellar medium of spiral (green stars); irregular (blue-gray diamonds) and elliptical…

**Figure 10.** X-IFU simulation for a z = 7 GRB with an observed fluence of 1e-7 cgs assuming a ToO at 12 hr with 50 ksec of integration, zooming in on the Si complex (left panel) and the Fe-K shell complex (right panel). The top panel plots the unfolded spectrum (with a bin size of 1 eV) in navy blue. The continuum is plotted in orange, while the total spectrum is plotted in green. The bottom panels plot the residuals for the lines against the continuum. reasonable scenario where ≈ 70% of the sky is covered by one or more GRB experiments involving e.g. constellations of nanosatellites, ESA…

**Figure 11.** Sketch of the various close environments that can be probed by X-ray absorption spectroscopy at high redshift. Upper panel: GRB exploding in a pristine medium. Mid panel: a GRB exploding in a medium enriched by popIII ejected metals upto Si and S. Lower panel: a GRB exploding in a popII environment, including Fe and heavier metals tion. In order to provide a controlled comparison, we have assumed the same fiducial values of column density and density (hence the size) and the same fluence of the popII GRB at highz. The corresponding spectra as observed by XIFU are shown in…

**Figure 12.** X-IFU unfolded spectrum for three distinct progenitor environments: pristine (violet: no metals), popII medium (green: Si and Fe) and a medium from popIII with top-heavy IMF (red: Si, but no Fe). The bottom panel plots the ratio of the counts normalised to the pristine case. For clarity of presentation, we have zoomed in on the 0.2-1 keV region. The absence of Fe-K absorption lines around 0.8 keV in the red spectrum as well as the absence of any lines in the pristine spectrum can be clearly seen. Note the narrow feature at 0.53 keV and the residual curvature at low energy of the…

**Figure 13.** X-IFU unfolded spectrum for a pristine environment (violet: no metals) and a popII environment with three distinct number densities: log(n) = 2 cm−3 (dark orange), log(n) = 3 cm−3 (green) and log(n) = 4 cm−3 (dark yellow). The spectra for the popII environment are simulated by fixing the size at 20 pc, thereby scaling the column with the number density. The bottom panel plots the ratio of the counts normalised to the pristine case. For clarity of presentation, we have zoomed in on the 0.2-1 keV region. The ratio for log(n) = 2 cm−3 does not show prominent narrow features, showing…

Showing 10 of the paper's 13 figures. See all figures in the PDF ↗ Figures reproduced from arXiv:2610.32786 by the authors.

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Discussion

Disagree with the review, or know something it missed? Leave a comment, highlight any passage above to comment on it, or challenge this review formally.

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