11 research outputs found
Discrete sources as the origin of the Galactic X-ray ridge emission
An unresolved X-ray glow (at energies above a few kiloelectronvolts) was
discovered about 25 years ago and found to be coincident with the Galactic disk
-the Galactic ridge X-ray emission. This emission has a spectrum characteristic
of a 1e8 K optically thin thermal plasma, with a prominent iron emission line
at 6.7 keV. The gravitational well of the Galactic disk, however, is far too
shallow to confine such a hot interstellar medium; instead, it would flow away
at a velocity of a few thousand kilometres per second, exceeding the speed of
sound in gas. To replenish the energy losses requires a source of 10^{43}
erg/s, exceeding by orders of magnitude all plausible energy sources in the
Milky Way. An alternative is that the hot plasma is bound to a multitude of
faint sources, which is supported by the recently observed similarities in the
X-ray and near-infrared surface brightness distributions (the latter traces the
Galactic stellar distribution). Here we report that at energies of 6-7 keV,
more than 80 per cent of the seemingly diffuse X-ray emission is resolved into
discrete sources, probably accreting white dwarfs and coronally active stars.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures. Draft version of the paper that will appear in
Nature, Issue April 30, 200
New nearby AGNs from all sky surveys of INTEGRAL and RXTE observatories
We present first results of a campaign of optical identifications of X-ray
sources discovered by RXTE and INTEGRAL observatories during their sky surveys.
In this work we study six newly discovered nearby active galactic nuclei at
z<0.1. The optical spectrophotometric data were obtained with Russian-Turkish
1.5-m telescope (RTT150). We present their redshifts and main parameters of
brightest emission lines.Comment: 6 pages, Astronomy Letters, in pres
IGR J16318-4848: an X-ray source in a dense envelope?
The hard X-ray source IGR J16318-4848 was recently discovered by the INTEGRAL
observatory (Courvoisier et al.) and subsequently uncovered in archival data of
ASCA observations in 1994 (Murakami et al.). We present results of a detailed
analysis of the ASCA data. The spectrum of the source in the 0.5--10 keV band
is extraordinarily hard and is virtually unobservable below 4 keV because of
strong photoabsorption NHL L>4e23 cm^-2. The 4--10 keV emission is dominated by
a Kalpha line of neutral or weakly ionized iron with an equivalent width of
\~2.5 keV. There is also an indication for a second line at ~7 keV. Our
analysis of archival observations of the IGR J16318-4848 infrared counterpart,
discovered by Foschini et al., shows that the point source is detected at
different wavelengths in the 1--15 micron range. The available data suggest
that IGR J16318-4848 is an X-ray binary system enshrouded by a dense envelope.
It is possible that the source is a wind-fed high-mass X-ray binary similar to
GX 301-2. We argue that IGR J16318-4848 might be the first representative of a
previously unknown population of highly absorbed galactic X-ray sources, which
remained undetected with X-ray missions before INTEGRAL.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy Letter
Detection of blueshifted emission and absorption and a relativistic Iron line in the X-ray spectrum of ESO 323-G077
We report on the X-ray observation of the Seyfert 1 ESO323-G077 performed
with XMM-Newton. The spectra show a complex spectrum with conspicuous
absorption and emission features. The continuum emission can be modelled with a
power law with an index of 1.99+/-0.02 in the whole XMM-Newton energy band,
marginally consistent with typical values of Type-I objects. An absorption
component with an uncommonly high equivalent Hydrogen column,
n_H=5.82(+0.12/-0.11)x10^22 cm-2, is affecting the soft part of the spectrum.
Additionally, two warm absorption components are also present. The lower
ionised one has an ionisation parameter of Log(U)=2.14(+0.06/-0.07) and an
outflowing velocity of v=3200(+600/-200) km/s. Two absorption lines located at
~6.7 and ~7.0 keV can be modelled with the highly ionised absorber. The
ionisation parameter and outflowing velocity of the gas measured are
Log(U)=3.26(+0.19/-0.15) and v=1700(+600/-400) km/s, respectively. Four
emission lines were also detected in the soft energy band. The most likely
explanation for these emission lines is that they are associated with an
outflowing gas with a velocity of ~2000 km/s. The data suggest that the same
gas which is causing the absorption could also being responsible of these
emission features. Finally, the spectrum shows the presence of a relativistic
iron emission line likely originated in the accretion disc of a Kerr BH with an
inclination of ~25 deg. We propose a model to explain the observed X-ray
properties which invokes the presence of a two-phase outflow with cone-like
structure and a velocity of the order of 2,000-4,000 km/s. The inner layer of
the cone would be less ionised, or even neutral, than the outer layer. The
inclination angle would be lower than the opening angle of the outflowing cone.Comment: 11 pages, accepted in MNRA
Traces of past activity in the Galactic Centre
The Milky Way centre hosts a supermassive Black Hole (BH) with a mass of
~4*10^6 M_Sun. Sgr A*, its electromagnetic counterpart, currently appears as an
extremely weak source with a luminosity L~10^-9 L_Edd. The lowest known
Eddington ratio BH. However, it was not always so; traces of "glorious" active
periods can be found in the surrounding medium. We review here our current view
of the X-ray emission from the Galactic Center (GC) and its environment, and
the expected signatures (e.g. X-ray reflection) of a past flare. We discuss the
history of Sgr A*'s past activity and its impact on the surrounding medium. The
structure of the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) has not changed significantly
since the last active phase of Sgr A*. This relic torus provides us with the
opportunity to image the structure of an AGN torus in exquisite detail.Comment: Invited refereed review. Chapter of the book: "Cosmic ray induced
phenomenology in star forming environments" (eds. Olaf Reimer and Diego F.
Torres
Fitting the Gamma-Ray Spectrum from Dark Matter with DMFIT: GLAST and the Galactic Center Region
We study the potential of GLAST to unveil particle dark matter properties
with gamma-ray observations of the Galactic center region. We present full
GLAST simulations including all gamma-ray sources known to date in a region of
4 degrees around the Galactic center, in addition to the diffuse gamma-ray
background and to the dark matter signal. We introduce DMFIT, a tool that
allows one to fit gamma-ray emission from pair-annihilation of generic particle
dark matter models and to extract information on the mass, normalization and
annihilation branching ratios into Standard Model final states. We assess the
impact and systematic effects of background modeling and theoretical priors on
the reconstruction of dark matter particle properties. Our detailed simulations
demonstrate that for some well motivated supersymmetric dark matter setups with
one year of GLAST data it will be possible not only to significantly detect a
dark matter signal over background, but also to estimate the dark matter mass
and its dominant pair-annihilation mode.Comment: 37 pages, 16 figures, submitted to JCA