Charge-Transfer induced EUV and Soft X-ray emissions in the Heliosphere

Abstract

We study the EUV/soft X-ray emission generated by charge transfer between solar wind heavy ions and interstellar H and He neutral atoms in the inner Heliosphere. We present heliospheric maps and spectra for stationary solar wind, depending on solar cycle phase, solar wind anisotropies and composition, line of sight direction and observer position. A time-dependant simulation of the X-ray intensity variations due to temporary solar wind enhancement is compared to XMM Newton recorded data of the Hubble Deep Field North observation (Snowden et al. 2004). Results show that the heliospheric component can explain a large fraction of the line intensity below 1.3 keV, strongly attenuating the need for soft X-ray emission from the Local Interstellar Bubble.