Coronal X-ray temperatures from Einstein and EXOSAT observations

Abstract

Spectral analysis of coronal X-ray emission from stars observed with both the Einstein and EXOSAT Observatories is presented. Using computer codes developed by Raymond and Smith /1/ and Landini and Fossi /2/ to calculate the X-ray emission from optically thin plasma in collisional equilibrium we find that the derived coronal parameters depend only rather insensitively on the details of the calculated theoretical X-ray spectrum and demonstrate how both the Einstein Observatory IPC spectra and the EXOSAT LE filter ratios can be naturally and simultaneously explained by assuming an underlying continuous emission measure distribution as is the case in the solar corona.