An Imaging and Spectral Study of Ten X-Ray Filaments around the Galactic Center

Abstract

We report the detection of 10 new X-ray filaments using the data from the {\sl Chandra} X-ray satellite for the inner $6^{\prime }$ ($\sim 15$ parsec) around the Galactic center (GC). All these X-ray filaments are characterized by non-thermal energy spectra, and most of them have point-like features at their heads that point inward. Fitted with the simple absorbed power-law model, the measured X-ray flux from an individual filament in the 2-10 keV band is $\sim 2.8\times 10^{-14}$ to $10^{-13}$ ergs cm${}^{-2}$ s${}^{-1}$ and the absorption-corrected X-ray luminosity is $\sim 10^{32}-10^{33}$ ergs s${}^{-1}$ at a presumed distance of 8 kpc to the GC. We speculate the origin(s) of these filaments by morphologies and by comparing their X-ray images with the corresponding radio and infrared images. On the basis of combined information available, we suspect that these X-ray filaments might be pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) associated with pulsars of age $10^3\sim 3\times 10^5$ yr. The fact that most of the filament tails point outward may further suggest a high velocity wind blowing away form the GC.

arXiv comment29 pages with 7 figures and 3 pages included. Accepted to ApJ

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