On the intensity of the extragalactic X-ray background

Measurements of the intensity of the cosmic X-ray background (XRB) carried out over small solid angles are subject to spatial variations caused by the discrete nature of the XRB. This cosmic variance can account for the dispersion of XRB intensity values found within the ASCA, BeppoSAX and ROSAT mis...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Barcons, Xavier, Mateos, Silvia, Ceballos, María Teresa
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2000
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/394011
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/394011
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Cosmology: observations
X-rays: general
Diffuse radiation
Descripción
Sumario:Measurements of the intensity of the cosmic X-ray background (XRB) carried out over small solid angles are subject to spatial variations caused by the discrete nature of the XRB. This cosmic variance can account for the dispersion of XRB intensity values found within the ASCA, BeppoSAX and ROSAT missions separately. However, there are differences among the values obtained in the different missions, which are not caused by spatial fluctuations but, more likely, by systematic cross-calibration errors. Prompted by recent work which shows that the ROSAT PSPC has calibration differences from all the other missions, we compute a Bayesian estimate for the XRB intensity at 1 keV of 10:0+/-0:6 20:9 keV cm22 s21 sr21 keV21 (90 per cent confidence errors) using the ASCA and BeppoSAX data points. However, thisvalue is still significantly larger than the HEAO-1 intensity measured over many thousands of square degrees 8 keV cm22 s21 sr21 keV-1.