Detecting the Missing Baryons with the International X-ray Observatory

Details Detecting the Missing Baryons with the International X-ray Observatory Detecting the Missing Baryons with the International X-ray Observatory

Feb 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010head...11.0609s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #11, #6.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.659

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Less than 10% of the baryons in the local Universe lie in galaxies as stars or cold gas, with the remainder predicted to exist as a dilute gaseous filamentary network - the Cosmic Web. Some of this cosmic web is detected through Lyα and O VI absorption lines, but half remains undetected. Growth of structure simulations predict that these "missing” baryons are shock heated in unvirialized cosmic filaments to temperatures up to 10 MK, and chemically enriched by galactic superwinds.
The International X-ray Observatory, a joint effort of NASA, ESA, and JAXA, will provide an order of magnitude increase in collection area over existing missions to 0.1 m2 and R=3000 spectral resolution. IXO will enable detection of the missing baryons and characterize their velocity distribution for at least 30 lines of sight. This distribution of mass as a function of temperature can be determined from X-ray absorption line grating spectroscopy of highly ionized C, N, and O detected against background AGNs. The extent of the galactic superwinds will also be measured from both the proximity of absorption sites to galaxies and the dynamics of the hot gas. Finally, X-ray emission studies beyond the virial radii of galaxy clusters will test if the hot gas is filamentary or not.

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