RGS Spectroscopy of the Cygnus Loop XA Knot

The observations were performed at the end of April 2002, and the data were received in July 2002. Unfortunately, the observations were badly compromised by high levels of background radiation; one of the three observations was lost entirely. Two replacement observations were scheduled for November 2002, and were only made available in January of 2003. A preliminary analysis of the RGS data has been performed. Analysis of these data is complicated by the extended nature of the source, and the limited statistics. Nevertheless, examination of the 'm lambda' vs. 'xdsp-corr' data shows that the bright knot is visible in C VI Ly-alpha and Ly-beta, the O VII triplet and He-beta, and O VIII Ly-alpha. The dispersed C VI Ly-alpha image is the first image of the remnant at that energy. The F, I, R components of the O VII triplet can be seen, and the 0 VII He-beta is distinct from the O VIII Ly-alpha (although the dispersed diffuse emission provides a pseudo-continuum). Trial-and-error adjustment of the rgsproc parameters allowed the extraction of a narrow (approx. 1 arcmin wide) region centered on the knot; corresponding background spectra were extracted from the sky background data sets. The xspec rgsxsrc model was used to convolve the response with a Chandra spatial image. Because the spatial distribution of the emission is energy-dependent, the use of a single convolution kernel is only approximate.