Identifying XMM-Newton observations affected by solar wind charge exchange - Part II

Abstract

We wished to analyse a sample of observations from the XMM-Newton Science Archive to search for evidence of exospheric solar wind charge exchange (SWCX) emission. We analysed 3012 observations up to and including revolution 1773. The method employed extends from that of the previously published paper by these authors on this topic. We detect temporal variability in the diffuse X-ray background within a narrow low-energy band and contrast this to a continuum. The low-energy band was chosen to represent the key indicators of charge exchange emission and the continuum was expected to be free of SWCX. Approximately 3.4 % of observations studied are affected. We discuss our results with reference to the XMM-Newton mission. We further investigate remarkable cases by considering the state of the solar wind and the orientation of XMM-Newton at the time of these observations. We present a method to approximate the expected emission from observations, based on given solar wind parameters taken from an upstream solar wind monitor. We also compare the incidence of SWCX cases with solar activity. We present a comprehensive study of the majority of the suitable and publically available XMM-Newton Science Archive to date, with respect to the occurrence of SWCX enhancements. We present our SWCX-affected subset of this dataset. The mean exospheric-SWCX flux observed within this SWCX-affected subset was 15.4 keV cm-2 s-1 sr-1 in the energy band 0.25 to 2.5 keV. Exospheric SWCX is preferentially detected when XMM-Newton observes through the subsolar region of the Earth's magnetosheath. The model developed to estimate the expected emission returns fluxes within a factor of a few of the observed values in the majority of cases, with a mean value at 83 %.

17 pages, 16 figures, accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics 21st December 2010

References in corpus (4)

• The XMM-Newton Serendipitous Survey. V. The Second XMM-Newton Serendipitous Source Catalogue
• Spectral Analysis of the Chandra Comet Survey
• OVII and OVIII line emission in the diffuse soft X-ray background: heliospheric and galactic contributions
• Identifying XMM-Newton observations affected by solar wind charge exchange - Part I

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• The Interaction of the Fermi Bubbles with the Milky Way's Hot Gas Halo
• XMM-Newton observations of the merging galaxy cluster CIZA J2242.8+5301
• Solar Wind Charge Exchange: An Astrophysical Nuisance
• The XMM Cluster Outskirts Project (X-COP): Physical conditions to the virial radius of Abell 2142
• An XMM-Newton Survey of the Soft X-ray Background. II. An All-Sky Catalog of Diffuse O VII and O VIII Emission Intensities
• AXIOM: Advanced X-ray Imaging Of the Magnetosphere
• The Solar Wind Charge-Exchange Production Factor for Hydrogen
• Enhancement of Terrestrial Diffuse X-ray Emission Associated With Coronal Mass Ejection and Geomagnetic Storm
• The Milky Way's Hot Gas Kinematics: Signatures in Current and Future OVII Absorption Line Observations
• Projection effects in galaxy cluster samples: insights from X-ray redshifts
• Emission lines between 1 and 2 keV in Cometary X-ray Spectra
• The Origin of the Hot Gas in the Galactic Halo: Testing Galactic Fountain Models' X-ray Emission
• Suzaku detection of enigmatic geocoronal solar wind charge exchange event associated with coronal mass ejection
• Galaxy gas ejection in radio galaxies: the case of 3C 35
• Suzaku Detection of Solar Wind Charge Exchange Emission from a Variety of Highly-ionized Ions in an Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection
• Scaling relations of X-ray Luminous Clusters in the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program Field
• XMM-Newton Measurement of the Galactic Halo X-ray Emission using a Compact Shadowing Cloud
• Soft X-ray imaging of Earth's dayside magnetosheath and cusps using hybrid simulations
• Cometary Charge Exchange Diagnostics in UV and X-ray
• The SMILE mission
• Modeling of geocoronal solar wind charge exchange events detected with Suzaku
• Non-thermal processes in coronae and beyond