Determining the reality of X-ray filaments
Abstract
A number of authors have reported filaments connecting bright structures in high-resolution X-ray images, and in some cases these have been taken as evidence for a physical connection between the structures, which might be thought to provide support for a model with non-cosmological redshifts. In this paper I point out two problems which are inherent in the interpretation of smoothed photon-limited data of this kind, and develop some simple techniques for the assessment of the reality of X-ray filaments, which can be applied to either simply smoothed or adaptively smoothed data. To illustrate the usefulness of these techniques, I apply them to archival ROSAT observations of galaxies and quasars previously analysed by others. I show that several reported filamentary structures connecting X-ray sources are not in fact significantly detected.
- Publication:
-
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- May 2000
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.astro-ph/0004226
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/0004226
- Bibcode:
- 2000A&A...357..884H
- Keywords:
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- METHODS: STATISTICAL;
- X-RAYS: GALAXIES;
- GALAXIES: SEYFERT;
- GALAXIES: QUASARS: GENERAL;
- GALAXIES: STARBURST;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- To appear in A&