AAS 197, January 2001
Session 107. Galaxy Clusters and Large Scale Structure II
Display, Thursday, January 11, 2001, 9:30-4:00pm, Exhibit Hall

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[107.12] Clusters, Groups, and the Diffuse X-ray Background

G. M. Voit (STScI), G. Bryan (MIT), A. E. Evrard (U. Michigan), M. Donahue (STScI)

Many, if not most, of the baryons in the present-day universe are thought to reside in intergalactic space at temperatures of 105 to 107 K. X-ray emission from these baryons contributes a modest (10 1 keV background whose prominence depends on the amount of non-gravitational energy injected into intergalactic space by supernovae and AGNs. Because the virialized regions of groups and clusters cover a large percentage of the sky, observing the baryons belonging to individual intercluster filaments may prove quite difficult. However, information about the global properties of the intergalactic medium is contained in the surface-brightness distribution of the diffuse X-ray background.

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