The solar wind charge-transfer X-ray emission in the 1/4 keV energy range: inferences on Local Bubble hot gas at low Z

TL;DR

This study models heliospheric solar wind charge-exchange X-ray emission and compares it with ROSAT observations to infer properties of the Local Bubble's hot gas, highlighting the significance of SWCX in foreground X-ray emission.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed calculations of SWCX spectra in the 1/4 keV band and assesses their contribution relative to hot gas emission in the Local Bubble.

Findings

SWCX emission can account for most of the foreground X-ray emission at low galactic latitudes.

SWCX intensity is smaller than observed at higher galactic latitudes.

Discrepancies in band ratios suggest the need for improved atomic data and models.

Abstract

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.