Measuring the Cosmic X-ray Background With RXTE Using Lunar Occultation

Details Measuring the Cosmic X-ray Background With RXTE Using Lunar Occultation Measuring the Cosmic X-ray Background With RXTE Using Lunar Occultation

Sep 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011head...12.3916m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #12, #39.16

Statistics

Scientific paper

The Cosmic X-ray background (CXB) contains significant information about the energy content of the universe. However, the total X-ray background flux itself is still a matter of some controversy. A recent compilation of 10 CXB 2-10 keV flux measurements by Moretti et al. (2003) found statistical errors of 5%, with some values differing by up to 25%. Here we present preliminary results of a new technique to measure the X-ray background, using the dark side of the moon as an occulting shutter within the RXTE PCA field of view. This technique has the benefit of measuring the total X-ray background emission, rather than concentrating on the point-like sources. Observations were carefully designed to allow the moon to pass over the center of the PCA field of view, obscuring about 20% of the total field of view. Multiple observations throughout the year 2010, at different celestial locations, allow improved statistics and a measure of cosmic variance. In this work, we show the first results from this technique and compare to previous results, with the goal of achieving better than 5% statistical errors in the 2-10 keV band.

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