Low-luminosity X-ray sources and the Galactic ridge X-ray emission
Abstract
We make a new determination of the hard-band (2-10 keV) X-ray luminosity function (XLF) of relative low-luminosity Galactic X-ray sources based on a source sample derived from the XMM Slew Survey (XSS). The source population is comprised of coronally-active late-type stars and binaries with hard-band X-ray luminosities in the range 10^{28-32} erg s^{-1} and cataclysmic variables (magnetic and non-magnetic) with X-ray luminosities spanning the range 10^{30-34} erg s^{-1}. We use this new estimate of the XLF, to predict the 2-10 keV X-ray source counts on the Galactic Plane at faint fluxes and show that the result is fully consistent with the available observational constraints. Similarly the predicted surface brightness, both in the full 2-10 keV band and in a restricted 6-10 keV bandpass, due to the integrated emission of faint unresolved Galactic sources, is well matched to the observed intensity of the Galactic ridge X-ray emission (GRXE). We find that the coronally-active sources make the dominant contribution to both the faint Galactic X-ray source counts and the GRXE.
- Publication:
-
The X-ray Universe 2014
- Pub Date:
- July 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014xru..confE.204W