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Register a new userThe solar wind charge-transfer X-ray emission in the 1/4 keV energy range: inferences on Local Bubble hot gas at low Z
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We present calculations of the heliospheric SWCX emission spectra and their contributions in the ROSAT 1/4 keV band. We compare our results with the soft X-ray diffuse background (SXRB) emission detected in front of 378 identified shadowing regions during the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (Snowden et al. 2000). This foreground component is principally attributed to the hot gas of the so-called Local Bubble (LB), an irregularly shaped cavity of ~50-150 pc around the Sun, which is supposed to contain ~10^6 K plasma. Our results suggest that the SWCX emission from the heliosphere is bright enough to account for most of the foreground emission towards the majority of low galactic latitude directions, where the LB is the least extended. In a large part of directions with galactic latitude above 30deg the heliospheric SWCX intensity is significantly smaller than the measured one. However, the SWCX R2/R1 band ratio differs slightly from the data in the galactic center direction, and more significantly in the galactic anti-centre direction where the observed ratio is the smallest. Assuming that both SWCX and hot gas emission are present and their relative contributions vary with direction, we tested a series of thermal plasma spectra for temperatures ranging from 10^5 to 10^6.5 K and searched for a combination of SWCX spectra and thermal emission matching the observed intensities and band ratios, while simultaneously being compatible with O VI emission measurements. In the frame of collisional equilibrium models and for solar abundances, the range we derive for hot gas temperature and emission measure cannot reproduce the Wisconsin C/B band ratio. We emphasize the need for additional atomic data, describing consistently EUV and X-ray photon spectra of the charge-exchange emission of heavier solar wind ions.
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The Solar neighborhood is the closest and most easily studied sample of the Galactic interstellar medium, an understanding of which is essential for models of star formation and galaxy evolution. Observations of an unexpectedly intense diffuse flux of easily-absorbed 1/4 keV X rays, coupled with the discovery that interstellar space within ~100 pc of the Sun is almost completely devoid of cool absorbing gas led to a picture of a local cavity filled with X-ray emitting hot gas dubbed the local hot bubble. This model was recently upset by suggestions that the emission could instead be produced readily within the solar system by heavy solar wind ions charge exchanging with neutral H and He in interplanetary space, potentially removing the major piece of evidence for the existence of million-degree gas within the Galactic disk. Here we report results showing that the total solar wind charge exchange contribution is 40% +/- 5% (stat) +/- 5% (sys) of the 1/4 keV flux in the Galactic plane. The fact that the measured flux is not dominated by charge exchange supports the notion of a million-degree hot bubble of order 100 pc extent surrounding the Sun.
The hot Local Bubble surrounding the solar neighborhood has been primarily studied through observations of its soft X-ray emission. The measurements were obtained by attributing all of the observed local soft X-rays to the bubble. However, mounting evidence shows that the heliosphere also produces diffuse X-rays. The source is solar wind ions that have received an electron from another atom. The presence of this alternate explanation for locally produced diffuse X-rays calls into question the existence and character of the Local Bubble. This article addresses these questions. It reviews the literature on solar wind charge exchange (SWCX) X-ray production, finding that SWCX accounts for roughly half of the observed local 1/4 keV X-rays found at low latitudes. This article also makes predictions for the heliospheric O VI column density and intensity, finding them to be smaller than the observational error bars. Evidence for the continued belief that the Local Bubble contains hot gas includes the remaining local 1/4 keV intensity, the observed local O VI column density, and the need to fill the local region with some sort of plasma. If the true Local Bubble is half as bright as previously thought, then its electron density and thermal pressure are 1/square-root(2) as great as previously thought, and its energy requirements and emission measure are 1/2 as great as previously thought. These adjustments can be accommodated easily, and, in fact, bring the Local Bubbles pressure more in line with that of the adjacent material. Suggestions for future work are made.
We present results from a sample of XMM-Newton and Suzaku observations of interstellar clouds that cast shadows in the soft X-ray background (SXRB) - the first uniform analysis of such a sample from these missions. By fitting to the on- and off-shadow spectra, we separated the foreground and Galactic halo components of the SXRB. We tested different foreground models - two solar wind charge exchange (SWCX) models and a Local Bubble (LB) model. We also examined different abundance tables. We found that Anders & Grevesse (1989) abundances, commonly used in previous SXRB studies, may result in overestimated foreground brightnesses and halo temperatures. We also found that assuming a single solar wind ionization temperature for a SWCX model can lead to unreliable results. We compared our measurements of the foreground emission with predictions of the SWCX emission from a smooth solar wind, finding only partial agreement. Using available observation-specific SWCX predictions and various plausible assumptions, we placed an upper limit on the LBs OVII intensity of ~0.8 photons/cm^2/s/sr (90% confidence). Comparing the halo results obtained with SWCX and LB foreground models implies that, if the foreground is dominated by SWCX and is brighter than ~1.5e-12 erg/cm^2/s/deg^2 (0.4-1.0 keV), then using an LB foreground model may bias the halo temperature upward and the 0.5-2.0 keV surface brightness downward by ~(0.2-0.3)e6 K and ~(1-2)e-12 erg/cm^2/s/deg^2, respectively. Similarly, comparing results from different observatories implies that there may be uncertainties in the halo temperature and surface brightness of up to ~0.2e6 K and ~25%, respectively, in addition to the statistical uncertainties. These uncertainties or biases may limit the ability of X-ray measurements to discriminate between Galactic halo models.
3D maps of the ISM can be used to locate not only IS clouds, but also IS bubbles between the clouds that are blown by stellar winds and supernovae. We compare our 3D maps of the IS dust to the ROSAT diffuse X-ray background maps. In the Plane, there is a good correspondence between the locations and extents of the mapped nearby cavities and the 0.25 keV background emission distribution, showing that most of these nearby cavities contribute to this soft X-ray emission. Assuming a constant dust to gas ratio and homogeneous 1MK hot gas filling the cavities, we modeled in a simple way the 0.25 keV surface brightness along the Galactic plane as seen from the Sun, taking into account the absorption by the mapped clouds. The data-model comparison favors the existence of hot gas in the Local Bubble (LB). The average mean pressure in the local cavities is found to be on the order of about 10,000 cm-3K, in agreement with previous studies. The model overestimates the emission from the huge cavities in the 3rd quadrant. Using CaII absorption data, we show that the dust to CaII ratio is very small in this region, implying the presence of a large quantity of lower temperature (non-X-ray emitting) ionized gas, explaining at least part of the discrepancy. In the meridian plane, the two main brightness enhancements coincide well with the chimneys connecting the LB to the halo. No nearby cavity is found towards the bright North Polar Spur (NPS) at high latitude. We searched in the maps for the source regions of the 0.75 keV enhancements in the 4th and 1st quadrants. Tunnels and cavities are found to coincide with the main bright areas, however no tunnel nor cavity is found to match the low-latitude, brightest part of the NPS. In addition, the comparison between the maps and published spectra do not favor the nearby cavities located within about 200pc as potential source regions for the NPS.
Snowden and coworkers have presented a model for the 1/4 keV soft X-ray diffuse background in which the observed flux is dominated by a ~ 10^6 K thermal plasma located in a 100-300 pc diameter bubble surrounding the Sun, but has significant contributions from a very patchy Galactic halo. Halo emission provides about 11% of the total observed flux and is responsible for half of the H I anticorrelation. The remainder of the anticorrelation is presumably produced by displacement of disk H I by the varying extent of the local hot bubble (LHB). The ROSAT R1 and R2 bands used for this work had the unique spatial resolution and statistical precision required for separating the halo and local components, but provide little spectral information. Some consistency checks had been made with older observations at lower X-ray energies, but we have made a careful investigation of the extent to which the model is supported by existing sounding rocket data in the Be (73-111 eV) and B bands (115-188 eV) where the sensitivities to the model are qualitatively different from the ROSAT bands. We conclude that the two-component model is well supported by the low-energy data. We find that these combined observations of the local component may be consistent with single-temperature thermal emission models in collisional ionization equilibrium if depleted abundances are assumed. However, different model implementations give significantly different results, offering little support for the conclusion that the astrophysical situation is so simple.
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