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M. Galeazzi, E. Ursino (University of Miami), R. Cen (Princeton University), W. T. Sanders (University of Wisconsin)
The number of detected baryons in the Universe at z<0.5 is much smaller than predicted by standard big bang nucleosynthesis and by the detailed observation of the Lyman alpha forest at red-shift z=2. Hydrodynamical simulations indicate that a large fraction of the baryons today is expected to be in a ''warm-hot'' (105–107~K) filamentary gas, distributed in the intergalactic medium (WHIM). It is currently believed that a significant fraction (\~10%) of the diffuse x-ray background in the energy band 0.5-1~keV is due to thermal emission from this intergalactic medium. The signature of the WHIM can be observed in red-shifted (z<1) strong soft x-ray and UV emission lines from highly ionized elements.
Using the prediction of the hydrodynamic models we simulated the expected x-ray emission due to the WHIM and compared it with local and high red-shift components. We then investigated the ability of future missions (Astro-E2, Constellation-X and MBE – a proposed dedicated SMEX mission) to detect the X-ray emission due to the WHIM, and we quantified the effect of the WHIM x-ray emission on current and past experiments.
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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: galeazzi@physics.miami.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.