A Systematic Analysis of the XMM-Newton Background: I. Dataset and Extraction Procedures

Abstract

XMM-Newton is the direct precursor of the future ESA ATHENA mission. A study of its particle-induced background provides therefore significant insight for the ATHENA mission design. We make use of about 12 years of data, products from the third XMM-Newton catalog as well as FP7 EXTraS project to avoid celestial sources contamination and to disentangle the different components of the XMM-Newton particle-induced background. Within the ESA R&D AREMBES collaboration, we built new analysis pipelines to study the different components of this background: this covers time behavior as well as spectral and spatial characteristics.

To appear in Experimental Astronomy, presented at AHEAD Background Workshop, 28-30 November 2016, Rome, Italy. 12 pages, 6 figures