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The Soft X-Ray Background: Evidence For Widespread Disruption Of The Gas Haloes Of Galaxy Groups, K K S Wu, A C. Fabian, Paul E. J Nulsen

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Almost all of the extragalactic X-ray background (XRB) at 0.25 keV can be accounted for by radio-quiet quasars, allowing us to derive an upper limit of 4 keV cm⁻² s⁻¹ sr⁻¹ keV⁻¹ for the remaining background at 0.25 keV. However, the XRB from the gas haloes of groups of galaxies, with gas removal resulting from cooling accounted for, exceeds this upper limit by an order of magnitude if non-gravitational heating is not included. We calculate this using simulations of halo merger trees and realistic gas density profiles, which we require to reproduce the observed gas fractions …