An X-ray View of Star Formation in the Central 3 kpc of NGC 2403

Abstract

Archival Chandra observations are used to study the X-ray emission associated with star formation in the central region of the nearby SAB(s)cd galaxy NGC 2403. The distribution of X-ray emission is compared to the morphology visible at other wavelengths using complementary Spitzer, GALEX, and ground-based Halpha imagery. In general, the brightest extended X-ray emission is associated with HII regions and to other star-forming structures but is more pervasive; existing also in regions devoid of strong Halpha and UV emission. This X-ray emission has the spectral properties of diffuse hot gas (kT ~ 0.2keV) whose likely origin is in gas shock-heated by stellar winds and supernovae with < 20% coming from faint unresolved X-ray point sources. This hot gas may be slowly-cooling extra-planar remnants of past outflow events, or a disk component that either lingers after local star formation activity has ended or that has vented from active star-forming regions into a porous interstellar medium.

25 pages, accepted to AJ

References in corpus (7)

• The GALEX Ultraviolet Atlas of Nearby Galaxies
• Accretion of gas onto nearby spiral galaxies
• Ultraviolet Through Far-Infrared Spatially Resolved Analysis of the Recent Star Formation in M81 (NGC3031)
• The Incidence of Highly-Obscured Star-Forming Regions in SINGS Galaxies
• The Chandra ACIS Survey of M33 (ChASeM33): Investigating the Hot Ionized Medium in NGC604
• Discovery of a Transient X-ray Source in the Compact Stellar Nucleus of NGC 2403
• Storm fronts over galaxy discs: Models of how waves generate extraplanar gas and its anomalous kinematics

Cited by in corpus (7)

• A Deep X-ray View of the Hot Halo in the Edge-on Spiral Galaxy NGC 891
• Extra-Nuclear Starbursts: Young Luminous Hinge Clumps in Interacting Galaxies
• Revealing Efficient Dust-Formation at Low Metallicity in Extragalactic Carbon-Rich Wolf-Rayet Binaries
• Spatially resolved star formation image and the ULX population in NGC2207/IC2163
• Hot Diffuse Emission in the Nuclear Starburst Region of NGC 2903
• The nature of the symbiotic candidate 2MASS J07363415+6538548 in the field of NGC 2403
• Probing the Infrared/Radio correlation of the full IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample with MeerKAT and the VLA