Preliminary Results from the Fourth Flight of the X-ray Quantum Calorimeter

Details Preliminary Results from the Fourth Flight of the X-ray Quantum Calorimeter Preliminary Results from the Fourth Flight of the X-ray Quantum Calorimeter

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21347530c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #475.30; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.440

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Scientific paper

The X-ray Quantum Calorimeter instrument is designed to study the diffuse soft X-ray background emission below 1 keV with high spectral resolution. To achieve high spectral resolution, the instrument uses a 6 x 6 array of detectors called microcalorimeters to thermally measure the energy of each incoming photon with an accuracy of 6 eV FWHM. For many years, it was thought that the dominant source of diffuse soft X-rays in the Galaxy was thermal emission from hot interstellar gas. However, 10 years ago, there was a realization that solar wind charge exchange could be an important source of X-rays. Modeling has shown that spatial distribution and temporal variation are difficult ways of distinguishing charge exchange from thermal emission. There are however subtle spectral differences between thermal emission and charge exchange. We can use the high spectral resolution of this instrument to look for evidence of charge exchange contributions. Preliminary results are presented from a flight of the instrument in May 2008 that observed a 1 steradian region of the sky centered at l = 90°, b = 60°. The observed relative strength of C VI Ly-γ to C VI Ly-α indicates a significant contribution to the lower energy part of the spectrum from solar wind charge exchange. On the other hand, preliminary estimates of the forbidden to resonance ratio in O VII appear roughly equal, indicating a likely dominance of thermal emission at higher energies.

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