Low-Mass X-ray Binary Populations

Low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) have been studied in the Galaxy since the beginning of X-ray astronomy. A lot has been learned about these bright X-ray sources, but significant questions are still open. These questions are related to the origin and evolution of LMXBs, dynamical evolution in globular clusters (GC) or evolution of native field binaries, and on how their properties may depend on those of the parent stellar population. The discovery of several populations LMXB populations in elliptical galaxies with Chandra gives us tools to look at these sources in a new way.Comment: Talk given at the meeting Mykonos-2010:"Binary Star Evolution: Mass Loss, Accretion, and Mergers". Submitted for publication in the proceeding

X-ray populations in galaxies

Today's sensistive, high resolution Chandra X-ray observations allow the study of many populations of X-ray sources. The traditional astronomical tools of photometric diagrams and luminosity functions are now applied to these populations, and provide the means for classifying the X-ray sources and probing their evolution. While overall stellar mass drives the amount of X-ray binaries in old stellar population, the amount of sources in star-forming galaxies is related to the star formation rate. Shart-lived, luminous, high mass binaries (HNXBs) dominate these young populations.Comment: This is a review talk,to be published in the proceedings of the IAU Symposium 230, Populations of high energy sources in galaxies, held in Dublin (Ireland), August 15-19, 200

The Very-Soft X-Ray Emission of X-Ray Faint Early-Type Galaxies

A recent re-analysis of Einstein data, and new ROSAT observations, have revealed the presence of at least two components in the X-ray spectra of X-ray faint early-type galaxies: a relatively hard component (kT>1.5 keV), and a very soft component (kT\sim 0.2-0.3 keV). We address the problem of the nature of the very soft component, and whether it can be due to a hot interstellar medium (ISM), or is most likely originated by the collective emission of very soft stellar sources. To this purpose, hydrodynamical evolutionary sequences for the secular behavior of gas flows in ellipticals have been performed, and the results are compared with the observational X-ray data: the very soft component could be entirely explained with a hot ISM only in galaxies where the depth of the potential well is quite shallow, otherwise the softest contribution to the X-ray emission comes certainly from stellar sources. As stellar soft X-ray emitters, we consider late-type stellar corone, supersoft sources such as those discovered by ROSAT in the Magellanic Clouds and M31, and RSCVn systems. We finally present a model for the X-ray emission of NGC4365, to reproduce in detail the results of the ROSAT pointed observation (PSPC spectrum and radial surface brightness distribution).Comment: Postscript file, 28 pages. For hardcopy of figures contact [email protected]. BAP 12-1993-040-DD

X-ray Photons in the CO 2-1 'Lacuna' of NGC 2110

A recent ALMA study of the Seyfert 2 Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) NGC 2110 by Rosario et al. (2019) has reported a remarkable lack of CO 2-1 emission from the circumnuclear region, where optical lines and H2 emission are observed, leading to the suggestion of excitation of the molecular clouds by the AGN. Since interaction with X-ray photons could be the cause of this excitation, we have searched the archival Chandra data for corroborating evidence. We report an extra-nuclear ~1'' (~170 pc) feature found in the soft (<1.0 keV) Chandra data of the Seyfert 2 Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) NGC 2110. This feature is elongated to the north of the nucleus and its shape matches well that of the optical lines and H2 emission observed in this region, which is devoid of CO 2-1 emission. The Chandra image completes the emerging picture of a multi-phase circumnuclear medium excited by the X-rays from the AGN, with dense warm molecular clouds emitting in H2 but depleted of CO 2-1 emission.Comment: ApJ Letters - in pres

Deep ROSAT-HRI observation of the elliptical galaxy NGC 1399

We present the preliminary results of a deep (167 ks) ROSAT HRI observation of the cD galaxy NGC1399 in the Fornax cluster. We find, in agreement with previous observations, an extended (41 Kpc adopting a distance of 19 Mpc) gaseous halo with a luminosity of L_X=(4.41\pm 0.04)x10^{41} erg/s. The 5 arcsec resolution of the data allows us to detect a very complex and asymmetric structure of the halo with respect to the optical galaxy. Moreover the analysis of the radial structure reveals the presence of a multi-component profile not consistent with a simple King model over the whole 40 Kpc. We do not detect the presence of a central source and pose an upper limit to the luminosity of a possible active nucleus. Due to the length of the observation, comparable to that of a deep survey, we detect a large number of sources within the HRI FOV, in slight excess with respect to the estimates based on previous surveys. We study the flux distribution of the sources, their temporal behaviour and their spatial distribution with respect to the central galaxy.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures (6 in color), 1 table; uses subfigure.sty, supertabular.sty, lscape.sty, color.sty; To be published in the proceeding of "X-ray Astronomy 2000" (Mondello (Palermo), September 2000