Detecting the warm-hot intergalactic medium through X-ray absorption lines

TL;DR

This study assesses the current capabilities and future requirements of X-ray observatories to detect the warm-hot intergalactic medium via absorption lines, highlighting the need for advanced spectral resolution and longer exposure times.

Contribution

It establishes detection limits for current X-ray telescopes and defines specifications for next-generation instruments to effectively study the WHIM through absorption lines.

Findings

Current spectra cannot confirm previous WHIM detections.

High S/N spectra are insufficient to constrain OVII column densities at 3sigma.

Future telescopes need R~4000 and >100 cm^2 effective area for effective WHIM detection.

Abstract

The warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) at temperatures 1E5-1E7 K is believed to contain 30-50% of the baryons in the local universe. However, all current X-ray detections of the WHIM at redshifts z>0 are of low statistical significance (<=3sigma) and/or controversial. In this work, we aim to establish the detection limits of current X-ray observatories and explore requirements for next-generation X-ray telescopes for studying the WHIM through X-ray absorption lines. We analyze all available grating observations of Mrk 421 and obtain spectra with signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of \sim90 and 190 per 50 mA spectral bin from Chandra and XMM observations, respectively. Although these spectra are two of the best ever collected with Chandra and XMM, we cannot confirm the two WHIM systems reported by Nicastro et al. in 2005. Our bootstrap simulations indicate that spectra with such high S/N cannot constrain the WHIM with OVII column densities N(OVII)\sim1e15 cm^{-2} (corresponding to an equivalent widths of 2.5 mA for a Doppler velocity of 50 km s^{-1}) at >=3sigma significance level. The simulation results also suggest that it would take >60 Ms for Chandra and 140 Ms for XMM to measure the N(OVII) at >=4sigma from a spectrum of a background QSO with flux of \sim0.2 mCrab (1 Crab = 2E-8 erg s^{-1} cm^{-2} at 0.5-2 keV). Future X-ray pectrographs need to be equipped with spectral resolution R \sim 4000 and effective area A>=100 cm^2 to accomplish the similar constraints with an exposure time of \sim2 Ms and would require \sim11 Ms to survey the 15 QSOs with flux \sim0.2 mCrab along which clear intergalactic OVI absorbers have been detected.