The SRG/eROSITA all-sky survey

Le résumé fourni par la source

The properties of the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) in cosmic filaments are among the least quantified units in modern astrophysics. The Spectrum Roentgen Gamma/eROSITA All Sky Survey (SRG/eRASS) provides a unique opportunity to study the X-ray emission of the WHIM. We applied both imaging and spectroscopic stacking techniques to the data of the first four eRASS scans to inspect the X-ray emissions from 7817 cosmic filaments identified from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) optical galaxy samples. We obtained a 9σ significant detection of the total X-ray signal from filaments in the 0.3–1.2 keV band. Here, we introduce a novel method to estimate the contamination fraction from unmasked X-ray halos, active galactic nuclei, and X-ray binaries associated with filament galaxies. We found an approximately 40% contamination fraction for these unmasked sources, suggesting that the remaining 60% of the signal could be coming from the WHIM and a 5.4σ detection significance of the WHIM. Moreover, we modeled the temperature and baryon density contrast of the detected WHIM by fitting the stacked spectrum and surface brightness profile. The best-fit temperature log(T/K) = 6.84 ± 0.07, obtained by using a single temperature model, is marginally higher than in the simulation results. This could be due to the fitting of a single temperature model on a multi-temperature spectrum. Assuming a 0.2 solar abundance, the best-fit baryon density contrast logΔb = 1.88 ± 0.18 is in general agreement with the X-ray emitting phases in the IllustrisTNG simulation. This result suggests that the broadband X-ray emission traces the high end of the temperature and density values that characterize the entire WHIM population.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.