Related papers: Cosmological X-ray Scattering from Intergalactic D…
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) produce a dominant fraction (~80%) of the Soft X-ray background (SXB) at photon energies 0.5<E<2 keV. If dust pervaded throughout the intergalactic medium, its scattering opacity would have produced diffuse…
The exquisite angular resolution available with Chandra should allow precision measurements of faint diffuse emission surrounding bright sources, such as the X-ray scattering halos created by interstellar dust. However, the ACIS CCDs suffer…
We present observations of the X-ray halo around the LMXB GX 13+1 from the Chandra X-ray telescope. The halo is caused by scattering in interstellar dust grains, and we use it to diagnose the line-of-sight position, size distribution, and…
Bright, short duration X-ray flares from accreting compact objects produce thin, dust scattering rings that enable dust echo tomography: high precision distance measurements and mapping of the line-of-sight distribution of dust. This work…
We analyze the X-ray scattering halos around three Galactic Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs) in order to constrain the distance and the optical extinction of each source. We obtain surface brightness distributions from EPIC-pn data obtained…
Interstellar abundance determinations from fits to X-ray absorption edges often rely on the incorrect assumption that scattering is insignificant and can be ignored. We show instead that scattering contributes significantly to the…
Scattering by interstellar dust grains can produce time variable X-ray halos around gamma-ray bursts (GRB). In particular, an X-ray expanding ring is expected when a short pulse of X-ray radiation is scattered by a narrow layer of dust in…
Hot intergalactic gas in clusters, groups, and filaments emanates a continuous background of 0.5-2.0 keV X-rays that ought to be detectable with the new generation of X-ray observatories. Here we present selected results from a program to…
This paper discusses the X-ray halo around the Swift gamma-ray burst GRB 050724 (z=0.258), detected by the Swift X-Ray Telescope. The halo, which forms a ring around the fading X-ray source, expands to a radius of 200" within 8 ks of the…
The abundances of gas and dust (solids and complex molecules) in the interstellar medium (ISM) as well as their composition and structures impact practically all of astrophysics. Fundamental processes from star formation to stellar winds to…
We examine the possibility of using near-infrared scattering to constrain the local radiation field and the dust properties, for example, the size distribution of the grains, and maximum grain size. We use radiative transfer modelling to…
X-ray scattering is a powerful probe of the optical constants and grain size distribution of interstellar dust. Bright, transient sources are excellent tools for this, since they fade rapidly, leaving only the expanding scattered x-ray…
Accurate estimates of the absorption of X-rays by interstellar gas and dust are of crucial importance for the analysis and interpretation of almost all astronomical soft X-ray observations. However, the present X-ray absorption data…
We show that space-based telescopes such as the proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph will be able to detect the light scattered by the interstellar grains along lines of sight passing near stars in our Galaxy. The relative flux of…
Using two Chandra observations we have derived estimates of the dust distribution and distance to the eclipsing high mass X-ray binary (HMXB) Cen X-3 using the energy-resolved dust-scattered X-ray halo. By comparing the observed X-ray halos…
Using three dimensional Monte Carlo radiation transfer models of photoionisation and dust scattering, we explore different components of the widespread diffuse H$\alpha$ emission observed in the interstellar medium of the Milky Way and…
Studying absorption and scattering of X-ray radiation by interstellar dust grains allows us to access the physical and chemical properties of cosmic grains even in the densest regions of the Galaxy. We aim at characterising the dust…
We aim to explore the capabilities of dust emission and rays for probing the properties of the interstellar medium in the nearby anti-centre region, using gamma-ray observations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT), and the thermal…
The X-ray properties of the haloes of disk galaxies formed in fully cosmological, hydro/gravity simulations are discussed. The results are found to be consistent with observational X-ray detections and upper limits. Disk galaxy haloes are…
We present a new technique for determining the *quantity and composition* of dust in astrophysical environments using <6keV X-rays. We argue that high resolution X-ray spectra as enabled by the Chandra and XMM-Newton gratings should be…