Halos around X-ray point sources due to scattering by interstellar dust

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Small solid particles are an important component of the interstellar medium. The scattering of X-rays depends on the size, distribution and composition of these dust grains. An interesting effect due to scattering by interstellar dust is the existence of halos around X-ray point sources. A variety of X-ray halos has been reported by Einstein, ROSAT and Chandra observations. Measurements of X-ray halos have been used to estimate dust grain density and composition, as well as to determine distance to X-ray sources. We compute the scattering of X-rays by interstellar dust using Monte Carlo simulations. The physical scenario simulated is the small-angle scattering of soft X-rays, emitted by a point source, by grains in the interstellar medium. We evaluate the amplitude of the scattering of X-rays by interstellar dust using an approximation for the sum of the Thomson scattering amplitudes for all the electrons in the grain. The result of that process is an X-ray halo, surrounding the source, which depends on the distribution of interstellar dust grain, the source flux, the hydrogen column density along the line of sight and the distance to the source. The galactic grain distribution model used was obtained in the literature and contains spheres of carbon, graphite and silicate. The halos produced in our simulations are in reasonable agreement with observed halos for Cyg X-3, GX 13+1 and N Cyg 1992 reported in the literature. We also use our code to predict the halo intensity for other interesting point sources.

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