2015ApJ...808..143K

The mean production factor, or broadband averaged cross-section, for solar wind charge-exchange (SWCX) with hydrogen producing emission in the ROSAT 1/4 KeV(R12) keV (R12) band is (3.8 ± 0.2) x 10^–20 count/degree2 cm⁴. The production factor is expected to be temporally variable, and that variation is roughly 15%. These values are derived from a comparison of the long-term (background) enhancements in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey with magnetohysdrodynamic simulations of the magnetosheath. This value is 1.8-4.5 times higher than values derived from limited atomic data, suggesting that those values may be missing a large number of faint lines. This production factor is important for deriving the exact amount of 1/4 KeV band flux that is due to the Local Hot Bubble, for planning future observations in the 1/4 keV band, and for evaluating proposals for remote sensing of the magnetosheath. The same method cannot be applied to the 3/4 keV band as that band, being composed primarily of the oxygen lines, is far more sensitive to the detailed abundances and ionization balance in the solar wind. We also show, incidentally, that recent efforts to correlate XMM-Newton observing geometry with magnetosheath SWCX emission in the oxygen lines have been, quite literally, misguided. Simulations of the inner heliosphere show that broader efforts to correlate heliospheric SWCX with local solar wind parameters are unlikely to produce useful results.