Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21547014h&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #470.14; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.515
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We present the first results of a survey of the soft X-ray background (SXRB) carried out using archival XMM-Newton observations. We do not restrict ourselves to blank-sky observations, but instead use as many observations as possible, removing bright or extended sources by hand if necessary. Here we present SXRB O VII and O VIII intensities extracted from several hundred XMM-Newton observations between l = 120deg and l = 240deg. Our dataset includes many directions with multiple observations, the oxygen intensity variations from which can be used to constrain solar wind charge exchange (SWCX) models. While the typical O VII variations between observations of the same direction are ɜ photons/cm2/s/sr (L.U.), one observation exhibits an O VII SWCX enhancement of 25 L.U.. In addition, we apply various filters to our dataset in an effort to reduce SWCX contamination, and use the resulting data to study hot gas in the Galactic halo with a temperature of 2 to 3 million K. We find that the O VII intensity increases with latitude in the northern Galactic hemisphere, contrary to the predictions of a simple "slab" model in which the halo's volumetric emissivity depends only on height. Instead, it is more likely that the emissivity falls off with Galactocentric distance. In addition, we find significant variation in the O VII/O VIII intensity ratio, possibly indicating a variation in the time since the halo gas was heated. More detailed comparisons of our XMM-Newton SXRB spectra with physical models of the hot halo gas are ongoing.
Henley David
Shelton Richard
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