High-Resolution Observations of the Elliptical Galaxy NGC 4636 with the Reflection Grating Spectrometer on Board XMM-Newton

By H. Xu, S. Kahn, J. R. Peterson, Eda Behar, F. Paerels, R. Mushotzky, J. Jernigan, A. Brinkman, K. Makishima. 2001

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We present the first high spectral resolution X-ray observation of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4636, obtained with the reflection grating spectrometer on board the XMM-Newton Observatory. The resulting spectrum contains a wealth of emission lines from various charge states of oxygen, neon, magnesium, and iron. Examination of the cross-dispersion profiles of several of these lines provides clear, unambiguous evidence of resonance scattering by the highest oscillator strength lines, as well as a weak temperature gradient in the inner regions of the interstellar medium. We invoke a sophisticated new Monte Carlo technique that allows us to properly account for these effects in performing quantitative fits to the spectrum. Our spectral fits are not subject to many of the systematics that have plagued earlier investigations. The derived metal abundances are higher than have usually been inferred from prior, lower spectral resolution observations of this source, but are still incompatible with conventional chemical-enrichment models of elliptical galaxies. In addition, our data are incompatible with standard cooling-flow models for this system; our derived upper limit to the mass deposition rate is below the predicted value by a factor of 3-5.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2bb5682db0a34ec30b1dc3d8adf777ebe614a34b

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Mechanical AGN feedback: controlling the thermodynamical evolution of elliptical galaxies (2012, background): “These numbers are probably still too high compared with available X-ray and UV observations (Bregman et al. 2001, 2005; Xu et al. 2002; Tamura et al. 2003) or star-formation estimates in massive ellipticals (Temi et al. 2009).”
Hot Gas In and Around Elliptical Galaxies (2003, background): “Subsolar central hot gas iron abundances, ∼ 0.8 solar, for r <∼ 3 kpc have been confirmed with XMM RGS observations (Xu et al. 2002; Sakelliou et al 2002).”
Radiative Feedback from Massive Black Holes in Elliptical Galaxies: AGN Flaring and Central Starburst Fueled by Recycled Gas (2007, background): “An additional very severe issue that active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback likely addresses is that of the ‘‘cooling flow problem’’ (e.g., Xu et al. 2002; Peterson& Fabian 2006), which in elliptical galaxies is at least as serious as the heavily analyzed cooling flow problem in clusters (because…”
What is a cool-core cluster? a detailed analysis of the cores of the X-ray flux-limited HIFLUGCS cluster sample (2009, background): “More recently, grating spectra fromXMM (Peterson et al. 2001; Tamura et al. 2001b,a; Kaastra et al. 2001; Xu et al. 2002; Sakelliou et al. 2002; Peterson et al. 2003; Sanders et al. 2008) have revealed that the gas in central regions is not cooling at the rates predicted by the traditional cooling…”
X-ray Spectroscopy of Cooling Clusters (2005, background): “Xu et al. (2002) found that Fe XVII and Fe XVIII was present in the nearby elliptical galaxy, NGC 4636.”
X-ray spectroscopy of galaxy clusters: studying astrophysical processes in the largest celestial laboratories (2009, methodology): “Note that the spatial scales of turbulence probed in the cores of elliptical galaxies by RGS are much smaller than those probed in Perseus (Churazov et al. 2004) or Coma (Schuecker et al. 2004).”
XMM—Newton observations of the Perseus cluster — II. Evidence for gas motions in the core (2003, background): “The role of resonant scattering also has been discussed for other objects, in particular M87 (Böhringer et al. 2001, Mathews, Buote and Brighenti 2001, Matsushita, Finoguenov & Böhringer 2003) and NGC 4636 (Xu et al., 2002).”
X-Ray Emission from the Hot Interstellar Medium and Southwest Radio Lobe of the Nearby Radio Galaxy Centaurus A (2003, background): “…Reflection Grating Spectrometer observations of A1835 (Peterson et al. 2001), M87 (Böhringer et al. 2001, 2002; Buote 2001), and NGC 4636 (Xu et al. 2002) have not detected the spectral signatures of this cool gas and have cast serious doubts on the existence of large amounts of cool…”
AGN heating and ICM cooling in the HIFLUGCS sample of galaxy clusters (2008, background): “…heating in the HIFLUGCS sample of galaxy clusters cores (e.g. Tamura et al. 2001; Peterson et al. 2001; Kaastra et al. 2001; Peterson et al. 2003; Xu et al. 2002; Sakelliou et al. 2002; Sanders et al. 2008), and; (2) even though the cooling of the ICM is manifested in the form of on-going star…”