669 research outputs found
Diffuse X-ray emission in spiral galaxies
We compare the soft diffuse X-ray emission from Chandra images of 12 nearby
intermediate inclination spiral galaxies to the morphology seen in Halpha,
molecular gas, and mid-infrared emission. We find that diffuse X-ray emission
is often located along spiral arms in the outer parts of spiral galaxies but
tends to be distributed in a rounder morphology in the center. The X-ray
morphology in the spiral arms matches that seen in the mid-infrared or Halpha
and so implies that the X-ray emission is associated with recent active star
formation. We see no strong evidence for X-ray emission trailing the location
of high mass star formation in spiral arms. However, population synthesis
models predict a high mechanical energy output rate from supernovae for a time
period that is about 10 times longer than the lifetime of massive ionizing
stars, conflicting with the narrow appearance of the arms in X-rays. The
fraction of supernova energy that goes into heating the ISM must depend on
environment and is probably higher near sites of active star formation. The
X-ray estimated emission measures suggest that the volume filling factors and
scale heights are high in the galaxy centers but low in the outer parts of
these galaxies. The differences between the X-ray properties and morphology in
the centers and outer parts of these galaxies suggest that galactic fountains
operate in outer galaxy disks but that winds are primarily driven from galaxy
centers.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures, to be submitted to Ap
A massive warm baryonic halo in the Coma cluster
Several deep PSPC observations of the Coma cluster reveal a very large-scale
halo of soft X-ray emission, substantially in excess of the well known
radiation from the hot intra-cluster medium. The excess emission, previously
reported in the central region of the cluster using lower-sensitivity EUVE and
ROSAT data, is now evident out to a radius of 2.6 Mpc, demonstrating that the
soft excess radiation from clusters is a phenomenon of cosmological
significance. The X-ray spectrum at these large radii cannot be modeled
non-thermally, but is consistent with the original scenario of thermal emission
from warm gas at ~ 10^6 K. The mass of the warm gas is on par with that of the
hot X-ray emitting plasma, and significantly more massive if the warm gas
resides in low-density filamentary structures. Thus the data lend vital support
to current theories of cosmic evolution, which predict that at low redshift
\~30-40 % of the baryons reside in warm filaments converging at clusters of
galaxies.Comment: Astrophysical Journal, in pres
An XMM-Newton Observation of the Local Bubble Using a Shadowing Filament in the Southern Galactic Hemisphere
We present an analysis of the X-ray spectrum of the Local Bubble, obtained by
simultaneously analyzing spectra from two XMM-Newton pointings on and off an
absorbing filament in the Southern galactic hemisphere (b ~ -45 deg). We use
the difference in the Galactic column density in these two directions to deduce
the contributions of the unabsorbed foreground emission due to the Local
Bubble, and the absorbed emission from the Galactic halo and the extragalactic
background. We find the Local Bubble emission is consistent with emission from
a plasma in collisional ionization equilibrium with a temperature and an emission measure of 0.018 cm^{-6} pc. Our
measured temperature is in good agreement with values obtained from ROSAT
All-Sky Survey data, but is lower than that measured by other recent XMM-Newton
observations of the Local Bubble, which find
(although for some of these observations it is possible that the foreground
emission is contaminated by non-Local Bubble emission from Loop I). The higher
temperature observed towards other directions is inconsistent with our data,
when combined with a FUSE measurement of the Galactic halo O VI intensity. This
therefore suggests that the Local Bubble is thermally anisotropic.
Our data are unable to rule out a non-equilibrium model in which the plasma
is underionized. However, an overionized recombining plasma model, while
observationally acceptable for certain densities and temperatures, generally
gives an implausibly young age for the Local Bubble (\la 6 \times 10^5 yr).Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 16 pages, 9
figure
A Chandra Observation of the Diffuse Emission in the Face-on Spiral NGC 6946
This paper describes the {\it Chandra} observation of the diffuse emission in
the face-on spiral NGC 6946. Overlaid on optical and H images, the
diffuse emission follows the spiral structure of the galaxy. An overlay on a 6
cm polarized radio intensity map confirms the phase offset of the polarized
emission. We then extract and fit the spectrum of the unresolved emission with
several spectral models. All model fits show a consistent continuum thermal
temperature with a mean value of 0.250.03 keV. Additional degrees of
freedom are required to obtain a good fit and any of several models satisfy
that need; one model uses a second continuum component with a temperature of
0.700.10 keV. An abundance measure of 3 for Si differs
from the solar value at the 90% confidence level; the net diffuse spectrum
shows the line lies above the instrumental Si feature. For Fe, the abundance
measure of 0.670.13 is significant at 99%. Multiple gaussians also provide
a good fit. Two of the fitted gaussians capture the O VII and O VIII emission;
the fitted emission is consistent with an {\it XMM-Newton} RGS spectrum of
diffuse gas in M81. The ratio of the two lines is 0.6-0.7 and suggests the
possibility of non-equilibrium ionization conditions exist in the ISM of NGC
6946. An extrapolation of the point source luminosity distribution shows the
diffuse component is not the sum of unresolved point sources; their
contribution is at most 25%.Comment: accepted for ApJ; 16 pages; 12 figs; to meet Archive size limits,
most converted to jpe
The X-ray spectra of the flaring and quiescent states of AT Microscopii observed by XMM-Newton
The X-ray spectrum of the late-type M-dwarf binary AT Mic (dM4.5e+dM4.5e) is
observed in the wavelength range 1 - 40 Angstrom by means of rgs and epic-mos
on board XMM-Newton. During the exposure a flare occured. We have performed a
3-temperature fit and a DEM-modeling to the flaring and quiescent part of the
spectrum. We report the coronal temperature distribution, emission measures,
and abundances of the flaring and quiescent state of this bright X-ray source.
The temperature range stretches from about 1 to 60 MK. The total volume
emission measure in this temperature interval is ~12.2*10^51 cm^-3 for the
quiescent state and ~19.5*10^51 cm^-3 for the flare state. This difference is
due to the contribution of the hot temperature component. The high-resolution
spectrum of AT Mic, obtained by rgs, is dominated by the H- and He-like
transitions of C, N, O, and Ne and by Fe XVII lines, produced by the plasma
with temperatures from 1 to 10 MK. The epic-mos spectrum below 10 Angstrom
shows H- and He-like Ne, Si and the iron K-shell transitions. They are produced
by the hot component (30 MK). The iron K-shell is more prominent in the flare
state. The abundance pattern in the quiescent state of AT Mic shows the
depletion of low-FIP elements relative to high-FIP elements, indicating the
presence of an I(nverse)FIP effect in this active star. In the flare state,
however, some flattening of this IFIP effect is present.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures ordered as: 1, 2ab, 3, 4abc, 5ab, 6a
The Origin of Soft X-rays in DQ Herculis
DQ Herculis (Nova Herculis 1934) is a deeply eclipsing cataclysmic variable
containing a magnetic white dwarf primary. The accretion disk is thought to
block our line of sight to the white dwarf at all orbital phases due to its
extreme inclination angle. Nevertheless, soft X-rays were detected from DQ Her
with ROSAT PSPC. To probe the origin of these soft X-rays, we have performed
Chandra ACIS observations. We confirm that DQ Her is an X-ray source. The bulk
of the X-rays are from a point-like source and exhibit a shallow partial
eclipse. We interpret this as due to scattering of the unseen central X-ray
source, probably in an accretion disk wind. At the same time, we observe what
appear to be weak extended X-ray features around DQ Her, which we interpret as
an X-ray emitting knot in the nova shell.Comment: 18 pages including 4 figures, accepted for publication in
Astrphyisical Journa
Ni abundance in the core of the Perseus Cluster: an answer to the significance of resonant scattering
Using an XMM-Newton observation of the Perseus cluster we show that the
excess in the flux of the 7-8 keV line complex previously detected by ASCA and
BeppoSAX is due to an overabundance of Nickel rather than to an anomalously
high Fe He/Fe He ratio. This observational fact leads to the
main result that resonant scattering, which was assumed to be responsible for
the supposed anomalous Fe He/Fe He ratio, is no longer required.
The absence of resonant scattering points towards the presence of significant
gas motions (either turbulent or laminar) in the core of the Perseus cluster.Comment: 29 pages, 10 bw figures, accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journa
Discovery of X rays from Class 0 protostar candidates in OMC-3
We have observed the Orion Molecular Clouds 2 and 3 (OMC-2 and OMC-3) with
the Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO). The northern part of OMC-3 is found to be
particularly rich in new X-ray features; four hard X-ray sources are located in
and along the filament of cloud cores. Two sources coincide positionally with
the sub- dust condensations of MMS 2 and 3 or an outflow radio source
VLA 1, which are in a very early phase of star formation. The X-ray spectra of
these sources show an absorption column of (1-3) x 10^23 H cm-2. Assuming a
moderate temperature plasma, the X-ray luminosity in the 0.5-10 keV band is
estimated to be ~10^30 erg s^-1 at a distance of 450 pc. From the large
absorption, positional coincidence and moderate luminosity, we infer that the
hard X-rays are coming from very young stellar objects embedded in the
molecular cloud cores. We found another hard X-ray source near the edge of the
dust filament. The extremely high absorption of 3 x 10^23 H cm^-2 indicates
that the source must be surrounded by dense gas, suggesting that it is either a
YSO in an early accretion phase or a Type II AGN (e.g. a Seyfert 2), although
no counterpart is found at any other wavelength. In contrast to the hard X-ray
sources, soft X-ray sources are found spread around the dust filaments, most of
which are identified with IR sources in the T Tauri phase.Comment: 9 pages, To be appeared in ApJ v554 n2 Jun 20, 2001 issue, related
press release is available at http://science.psu.edu/alert/Tsuboi11-2000.htm,
Figure 1 and figure 2 with the best resolution is available at
ftp.astro.psu.edu/pub/tsuboi/OMC/010205
AGN heating and dissipative processes in galaxy clusters
Recent X-ray observations reveal growing evidence for heating by active
galactic nuclei (AGN) in clusters and groups of galaxies. AGN outflows play a
crucial role in explaining the riddle of cooling flows and the entropy problem
in clusters. Here we study the effect of AGN on the intra-cluster medium in a
cosmological simulation using the adaptive mesh refinement FLASH code. We pay
particular attention to the effects of conductivity and viscosity on the
dissipation of weak shocks generated by the AGN activity in a realistic galaxy
cluster. Our 3D simulations demonstrate that both viscous and conductive
dissipation play an important role in distributing the mechanical energy
injected by the AGN, offsetting radiative cooling and injecting entropy to the
gas. These processes are important even when the transport coefficients are at
a level of 10% of the Spitzer value. Provided that both conductivity and
viscosity are suppressed by a comparable amount, conductive dissipation is
likely to dominate over viscous dissipation. Nevertheless, viscous effects may
still affect the dynamics of the gas and contribute a significant amount of
dissipation compared to radiative cooling. We also present synthetic Chandra
observations. We show that the simulated buoyant bubbles inflated by the AGN,
and weak shocks associated with them, are detectable with the Chandra
observatory.Comment: accepted to ApJ, minor change
Shocks and sonic booms in the intracluster medium: X-ray shells and radio galaxy activity
Motivated by hydrodynamic simulations, we discuss the X-ray appearance of
radio galaxies embedded in the intracluster medium (ICM) of a galaxy cluster.
We distinguish three regimes. In the early life of a powerful source, the
entire radio cocoon is expanding supersonically and hence drives a strong shock
into the ICM. Eventually, the sides of the cocoon become subsonic and the ICM
is disturbed by the sonic booms of the jet's working surface. In both of these
regimes, X-ray observations would find an X-ray shell. In the strong shock
regime, this shell will be hot and relatively thin. However, in the weak shock
(sonic-boom) regime, the shell will be approximately the same temperature as
the undisturbed ICM. If a cooling flow is present, the observed shell may even
be cooler than the undisturbed ICM due to the lifting of cooler material into
the shell from the inner (cooler) regions of the cluster. In the third and
final regime, the cocoon has collapsed and no well-defined X-ray shell will be
seen. We discuss ways of estimating the power and age of the source once its
regime of behavior has been determined.Comment: 4 pages, submitted for publication in Astrophysical Journal. Full
paper (including figure) can be obtained from
http://rocinante.Colorado.EDU/~chris/papers/xray_hydro.p
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