The Magnificent Seven in the dusty prairie -- The role of interstellar absorption on the observed neutron star population
arXiv:astro-ph/0609275 · doi:10.1007/s10509-007-9344-8
Abstract
The Magnificent Seven have all been discovered by their exceptional soft X-ray spectra and high ratios of X-ray to optical flux. They all are considered to be nearby sources. Searching for similar neutron stars with larger distances, one expects larger interstellar absorption resulting in harder X-ray counterparts. Current interstellar absorption treatment depends on chosen abundances and scattering cross-sections of the elements as well as on the 3D distribution of the interstellar medium. After a discussion of these factors we use the comprehensive 3D measurements of the Local Bubble by Lallement et al. 2003 to construct two simple models of the 3D distribution of the hydrogen column density. We test these models by using a set of soft X-ray sources with known distances. Finally, we discuss possible applications for distance estimations and population synthesis studies.
8 pages, 7 figures; to appear in Astrophysics and Space Science, in the proceedings of "Isolated Neutron Stars: from the Interior to the Surface", edited by D. Page, R. Turolla and S. Zane
References in corpus (3)
Cited by in corpus (22)
- The Magnificent Seven: Magnetic fields and surface temperature distributions
- Thermal luminosities of cooling neutron stars
- Magnetic, thermal and rotational evolution of isolated neutron stars
- Magnetic, thermal and rotational evolution of isolated neutron stars
- Constraining the Spin-down of the Nearby Isolated Neutron Star RX J2143.0+0654
- Proper motions of thermally emitting isolated neutron stars measured with Chandra
- The isolated neutron star candidate 2XMM J104608.7-594306
- Constraining Light QCD Axions with Isolated Neutron Star Cooling
- Long-term evolution of dim isolated neutron stars
- A deep XMM-Newton look on the thermally emitting isolated neutron star RX J1605.3+3249
- Measuring proper motions of isolated neutron stars with Chandra
- An Optical Counterpart Candidate for the Isolated Neutron Star RBS1774
- Searching for substellar companions of young isolated neutron stars
- The peculiar isolated neutron star in the Carina Nebula - Deep XMM-Newton and ESO-VLT observations of 2XMM J104608.7-594306
- Searching for axion dark matter with MeerKAT Radio Telescope
- Two decades of X-ray observations of the isolated neutron star RX J1856.5-3754: detection of thermal and non-thermal hard X-rays and refined spin-down measurement
- Optical excess of dim isolated neutron stars
- Hubble Space Telescope observations of the old pulsar PSR J0108-1431
- Herschel and Spitzer observations of slowly rotating, nearby isolated neutron stars
- Two-blackbody portraits of radiation from magnetized neutron stars
- Observations of Isolated Neutron Stars with the ESO Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Demonstrator
- SGRs and AXPs proposed as ancestors of the Magnificent seven