The Sources of the Hard X-Ray Background

Abstract

The hard component (3 keV – ~ MeV) of the X-ray background (XRB) comprises the largest portion, ~ 90%, of the overall XRB intensity. The observed isotropy (the entire Galaxy is transparent above 3 keV) provides aprima facieevidence of its prevailing extragalactic nature. A large fraction (~ 75%) of the energy flux falls in the 3 – 100 keV band, the corresponding energy density being ≃ 5×10−5eV cm−3, of which 50% is confined to the narrower 3 – 20 keV band. Although the energy flux carried by the XRB is relatively small compared to other extragalactic backgrounds, it was soon realized that it cannot be accounted for in terms of sources and processes confined to the present epoch. An analysis of the combined observed spectra (Gruber 1992) concludes that, while a thermal bremsstrahlung with an e-folding energy = 41.13 keV accurately fits the data up to 60 keV, above this energy the sum of two power laws is required with normalizations such that at 60 keV the spectral index is ~ 1.6, gradually flattening to ~ 0.7 at MeV energies. It should also be noted that below 10 keV the XRB energy spectrum is well represented by a power law of index α = 0.4 (I∝E−α).