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.

29 pages with 7 figures and 3 pages included. Accepted to ApJ

References in corpus (6)

• Anisotropy and Corotation of Galactic Cosmic Rays
• A Chandra Catalog of X-ray Sources in the Central 150 pc of the Galaxy
• Discovery of two pulsars towards the Galactic Centre
• New Self-Similar Solutions of Polytropic Gas Dynamics
• Envelope Expansion with Core Collapse. III. Similarity Isothermal Shocks in a Magnetofluid
• Magnetohydrodynamic Rebound Shocks of Supernovae

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Wild at Heart:-The Particle Astrophysics of the Galactic Centre
• Diffuse X-Ray Sky in the Galactic Center
• NuSTAR and Chandra Observation of the Galactic Center Non-thermal X-ray Filament G0.13-0.11: A Pulsar Wind Nebula Driven Magnetic Filament
• Statistical Properties of the Population of the Galactic Center Filaments II: The Spacing Between Filaments
• G0.173-0.42: an X-ray and radio magnetized filament near the galactic center
• High Energy Emission from the Galactic Center