A High Resolution Model of Interstellar Absorption

The main goal of high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy is to identify interesting lines and measure their properties. These lines can tell us the mass/radius relationship of neutron stars, and velocities in AGN warm absorbers, the magnetic field strengths of magnetars, or identify the warm-hot intergalactic medium which contains the lost baryons in the local universe. Yet superimposed on these are the signatures of the Galactic interstellar medium (ISM). Proper modeling of the ISM is crucial to identify intrinsic line features from any object.