Bibcode
Smith, R. K.; Bautz, M. W.; Bookbinder, J.; Garcia, M. R.; Guainazzi, M.; Kilbourne, C. A.
Bibliographical reference
Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2010: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray. Edited by Arnaud, Monique; Murray, Stephen S.; Takahashi, Tadayuki. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 7732, pp. 773246-773246-8 (2010).
Advertised on:
7
2010
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
The background that will be observed by IXO's X-ray detectors naturally
separates into two components: (1) a Cosmic X-ray Background (CXB),
primarily due to unresolved point sources at high energies (E>2 keV),
along with Galactic component(s) at lower energies that are generated in
the disk and halo as well as the Local Bubble and charge exchange in the
heliosphere, and (2) a Non-X-ray Background (NXB) created by unvetoed
particle interactions in the detector itself. These may originate as
relativistic particles from the Sun or Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR),
creating background events due to both primary and secondary
interactions in the spacecraft itself. Stray light and optical
transmission from bright sources may also impact the background,
depending upon the design of the baffles and filters. These two
components have distinct effects on observations. The CXB is a sum of
power-law, thermal, and charge exchange components that will be focused
and vignetted by the IXO mirrors. The NXB, in contrast, is due to
particle, not photon, interactions (although there will be some
fluorescence features induced by particle interactions), and so will not
show the same effects of vignetting or trace the effective area response
of the satellite. We present the overall background rates expected from
each of these processes and show how they will impact observations. We
also list the expected rates for each CXB process using both mirror
technologies under consideration and the predicted NXB for each
detector.