Under the Shadow of the Magellanic Bridge: A Measurement of the Extragalactic Background at $\sim 0.7$~keV

Abstract

We measured the extragalactic 0.7 keV X-ray background by observing the X-ray shadow of a neutral gas cloud in the Magellanic Bridge region. Two \rosat PSPC observations of total 104~ks were complemented by a detailed H I mapping of the cloud with both the Parkes 64~m telescope and the Australia Telescope Compact Array. From the detected anti-correlation between the observed background intensity and the \ion{H}{1} column density of the cloud, we derived the unabsorbed extragalactic background intensity as 28 keV s^{-1} cm^{-2} keV^{-1} sr^{-1} at 0.7~keV. The 95% confidence lower limit 18 keV s^{-1} cm^{-2} keV^ {-1} sr^{-1}} is greater than the expected point-like source contribution < 14 keV s^{-1} cm^{-2} keV^{-1} sr^{-1}, constrained by the mean source spectrum together with the total background intensity in the 1-2 keV band. A significant fraction of the 0.7 keV background likely arises in a diffuse hot intergalactic medium of a few million degrees, as has been predicted in hydrodynamic simulations of cosmological structure formation.

To appear in New Astronomy, 13 pages, including 4 Encapsulated Postscript figures, also available at http://www.astro.nwu.edu/astro/wqd/bridge