Bringing stripped stars to X-ray light

We propose to observe the complete sample of confirmed binary Be stars with sdOcompanions. We aim to probe the essentials of binary evolution theory whichpredicts that Betype stars are the products of close binary evolution, and thata significant fraction of them have hot companions which were stripped ofhydrogen during a mass exchange event. The proposed survey will lead to acharacterization of Xray emission from Be+sdO binaries and establishing theirXray properties. Furthermore, we propose to measure the Xray spectra of twoprototypical Be+sdO systems, phi Per and o Pup, to measure the hot plasmatemperatures and emission measure, and to validate a hypothesis about stellarwind collisions in Be binaries. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]