Zooming In On Extreme Star-Formation: Multi-wavelength Observations of X-ray Emitting Strongly Lensed Galaxies

Observations of the most highly magnified, strongly lensed galaxies are uniquely able to reveal the internal properties of galaxies in the distant Universe. The magnification effect from lensing provides the highest-resolution view of star formation and stellar populations. As a result, lensing-assisted observations can resolve structures such as individual star-forming regions and new star clusters — the natural physical scales on which new stars form. JWST has opened a new window into the infrared universe, delivering rest-frame optical measurements of distant galaxies, and extending the potential for multi-wavelength studies looking back to “Cosmic Noon” and beyond. X-ray observations of strongly lensed galaxies remains a relatively unexplored frontier, but has the potential to deliver direct detections of the high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) that reside in young stellar populations in distant starburst galaxies. High angular resolution X-ray observations from the Chandra X-ray Observatory allows us to probe sub-galactic scales and distinguish the X-ray properties of distinct star forming regions. The X-ray signal from resolved star-forming regions reflects their HMXB populations, and therefore the population of very massive stars (M > 20 Msun) in those regions, as well as the fraction of those stars that form in binary systems. HST and JWST observations of the same galaxies have the power to constrain key stellar population and nebular ISM properties via both broadband imaging and spatially resolved spectroscopy spanning ~0.5 to ~30 microns, which samples the ultraviolet through near-infrared in lensed galaxies observed during Cosmic Noon. I will present results from early work using multi-wavelength observations to jointly measure the stellar and HMXB populations within star-forming regions.