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[2.03] An Initial Survey of X-ray Dust Halos with Chandra and XMM-Newton

R. K. Smith (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), E. Dwek (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center), A. N. Witt (Ritter Astrophysical Research Center, U. of Toledo)

X-ray halos created by interstellar dust grains have been observed with Einstein, ROSAT, and ASCA. However, Chandra observations qualitatively change the analysis that can be done, while XMM/Newton provides substantially more data on X-ray halos than has ever been available. The variation in the halo intensity with energy and angle is strongly dependent on the composition, size, and position of the dust grains. Prior observations allowed at best rough estimates of the dust grain properties to be made. Recently, Smith, Edgar & Shafer (2002) used Chandra observations of the LMXB GX13+1 to measure X-ray halos in far greater detail than ever before. We present results analyzed in a similar fashion using archival Chandra and XMM/Newton data on Galactic sources to measure energy-resolved X-ray halos. We will show comparisons of our results to existing dust grain models. We gratefully acknowledge support for this work from NASA Grant AR1-2006X.

Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#2
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.