Nonrelativistic Electron-Electron Thermal Bremsstrahlung Gaunt Factor

TL;DR

This paper provides highly accurate analytic fitting formulas for the nonrelativistic electron-electron thermal bremsstrahlung Gaunt factor, essential for analyzing high-precision X-ray observational data from Chandra and XMM-Newton.

Contribution

It introduces new analytic fitting formulas for the electron-electron thermal bremsstrahlung Gaunt factor with better than 1% accuracy over a wide temperature range.

Findings

Gaunt factor accuracy better than 1%

Applicable for temperatures 6.0 < log T[K] < 8.5

Useful for high-precision X-ray data analysis

Abstract

With the launch of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and XMM-Newton, X-ray astronomy has entered an era of precision science. The precision observational data taken by these satellites require precision basic physics data for their analysis. The present authors have recently published a series of papers in which they have reported the results of the accurate calculations of the electron-ion thermal bremsstrahlung which are particularly suited for the analysis of the high-temperature galaxy clusters. In this paper we will present accurate analytic fitting formulae for the nonrelativistic electron-electron thermal bremsstrahlung Gaunt factor which will be useful for the analysis of the X-ray observational data taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and XMM-Newton. With the publication of the present paper X-ray astronomers will be provided with an accurate thermal bremsstrahlung Gaunt factor which has an overall accuracy better than 1% for the temperature range 6.0 <log T[K] < 8.5.