The Soft X-Ray Background

Abstract

A survey of soft X-ray background observations in the 0.1–10 keV range is presented. In the region above 1 keV, recent results on point X-ray sources are discussed and their integrated contribution to the diffuse background is estimated. However, the average luminosity of various classes of extragalactic X-ray sources is still not sufficiently well known to permit this estimate to be made with any certainty. A discussion is given of recent observations at energies below 1 keV where the effects of interstellar absorption are important. It is argued that although some fraction of the background radiation in the 0.1–1 keV range must be galactic in origin, there is still substantial evidence for an extragalactic component. Proposed theories for generating both the galactic and extragalactic X-ray background are briefly reviewed.