New results on particle acceleration in the Centaurus A jet and counterjet from a deep Chandra observation

Original article can be found at: http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/apjl Copyright American Astronomical Society DOI: 10.1086/524197 [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]We present new deep Chandra observations of the Centaurus A jet, with a combined on-source exposure time of 719 ks. These data allow detailed X-ray spectral measurements to be made along the jet out to its disappearance at 4.5 kpc from the nucleus. We distinguish several regimes of high-energy particle acceleration; while the inner part of the jet is dominated by knots and has properties consistent with local particle acceleration at shocks, the particle acceleration in the outer 3.4 kpc of the jet is likely to be dominated by an unknown distributed acceleration mechanism. In addition to several compact counterjet features, we detect probable extended emission from a counterjet out to 2.0 kpc from the nucleus and argue that this implies that the diffuse acceleration process operates in the counterjet as well. A preliminary search for X-ray variability finds no jet knots with dramatic flux density variations, unlike the situation seen in M87.Peer reviewe

Evidence for Non-Hydrostatic Gas Motions in the Hot Interstellar Medium of Centaurus A

Original article can be found at: http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/apjl Copyright American Astronomical Society DOI: 10.1086/588023 [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]We present preliminary results from a deep (600 ks) Chandra observation of the hot interstellar medium of the nearby early-type galaxy Centaurus A. We find a surface brightness discontinuity in the gas ~3.5 kpc from the nucleus spanning a 120° arc. The temperature of the gas is 0.60 ± 0.05 keV (0.68 ± 0.10 keV) interior (exterior) to the discontinuity. The elemental abundance is poorly constrained by the spectral fits, but if the abundance is constant across the discontinuity, there is a factor of 2.3 ± 0.4 pressure jump across the discontinuity. This would imply that the gas is moving at 470 ± 100 km s−1, or Mach 1.0 ± 0.2 (1.2 ± 0.2) relative to the sound speed of the gas external (internal) to the discontinuity. Alternatively, pressure balance could be maintained if there is a large (factor of ~7) discontinuity in the elemental abundance. We suggest that the observed discontinuity is the result of nonhydrostatic motion of the gas core (i.e., sloshing) due to the recent merger. In this situation, both gas motions and abundance gradients are important in the visibility of the discontinuity. Cen A is in the late stages of merging with a small late-type galaxy, and a large discontinuity in density and abundance across a short distance demonstrates that the gas of the two galaxies remains poorly mixed, even several hundred million years after the merger. The pressure discontinuity may have had a profound influence on the temporal evolution of the kiloparsec-scale jet. The jet could have decollimated, crossing the discontinuity and thereby forming the northeast radio lobe.Peer reviewe

Luminosity functions of LMXBs in Centaurus A: globular clusters versus the field

Original article can be found at: http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/apj Copyright American Astronomical Society. DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/701/1/471 [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]We study the X-ray luminosity function (XLF) of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXB) in the nearby early-type galaxy Centaurus A, concentrating primarily on two aspects of binary populations: the XLF behavior at the low-luminosity limit and the comparison between globular cluster and field sources. The 800 ksec exposure of the deep Chandra VLP program allows us to reach a limiting luminosity of ~8 × 1035 erg s–1, about ~2-3 times deeper than previous investigations. We confirm the presence of the low-luminosity break of the overall LMXB XLF at log(LX ) 37.2-37.6, below which the luminosity distribution follows a dN/d(ln L) ~ const law. Separating globular cluster and field sources, we find a statistically significant difference between the two luminosity distributions with a relative underabundance of faint sources in the globular cluster population. This demonstrates that the samples are drawn from distinct parent populations and may disprove the hypothesis that the entire LMXB population in early-type galaxies is created dynamically in globular clusters. As a plausible explanation for this difference in the XLFs, we suggest an enhanced fraction of helium-accreting systems in globular clusters, which are created in collisions between red giants and neutron stars. Due to the four times higher ionization temperature of He, such systems are subject to accretion disk instabilities at 20 times higher mass accretion rate and, therefore, are not observed as persistent sources at low luminosities.Peer reviewe

High-energy particle acceleration at the radio-lobe shock of Centaurus A

We present new results on the shock around the south-west radio lobe of Centaurus A using data from the Chandra Very Large Programme observations (740 ks total observing time). The X-ray spectrum of the emission around the outer south-western edge of the lobe is well described by a single power-law model with Galactic absorption – thermal models are strongly disfavoured, except in the region closest to the nucleus. We conclude that a significant fraction of the X-ray emission around the south-west part of the lobe is synchrotron, not thermal. We infer that in the region where the shock is strongest and the ambient gas density lowest, the inflation of the lobe is accelerating particles to X-ray synchrotron emitting energies, similar to supernova remnants such as SN1006. This interpretation resolves a problem of our earlier, purely thermal, interpretation for this emission, namely that the density compression across the shock was required to be much larger than the theoretically expected factor of 4. We describe a self-consistent model for the lobe dynamics and shock properties using the shell of thermal emission to the north of the lobe to estimate the lobe pressure. Based on this model, we estimate that the lobe is expanding to the south-west with a velocity of ~2600 km s-1 , roughly Mach 8 relative to the ambient medium. We discuss the spatial variation of spectral index across the shock region, concluding that our observations constrain γmax for the accelerated particles to be ~108 at the strongest part of the shock, consistent with expectations from diffusive shock acceleration theory. Finally, we consider the implications of these results for the production of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) and TeV emission from Centaurus A, concluding that the shock front region is unlikely to be a significant source of UHECRs, but that TeV emission from this region is expected at levels comparable to current limits at TeV energies, for plausible assumed magnetic field strengths