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Probing the hot IGM with AXAF

Claude R. Canizares, Taotao Fang

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/9805046

Abstract

The transmission grating spectrometers on AXAF have sufficient sensitivity and energy resolution to detect resonance X-ray absorption lines in the spectra of distant quasars. Such lines would be produced in an ionized, and somewhat chemically enriched component of the inter-galactic medium. The bulk of the baryonic content of the universe at redshifts <=2-3 could be in this form and would thus be revealed by AXAF.

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