Hot Gaseous Coronae around Spiral Galaxies: Probing the Illustris Simulation

Abstract

The presence of hot gaseous coronae around present-day massive spiral galaxies is a fundamental prediction of galaxy formation models. However, our observational knowledge remains scarce, since to date only four gaseous coronae were detected around spirals with massive stellar bodies ($\gtrsim 2\times 10^{11}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$). To explore the hot coronae around lower mass spiral galaxies, we utilized Chandra X-ray observations of a sample of eight normal spiral galaxies with stellar masses of $(0.7-2.0)\times 10^{11}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$. Although statistically significant diffuse X-ray emission is not detected beyond the optical radii ($\sim 20$ kpc) of the galaxies, we derive $3\sigma$ limits on the characteristics of the coronae. These limits, complemented with previous detections of NGC 1961 and NGC 6753, are used to probe the Illustris Simulation. The observed $3\sigma$ upper limits on the X-ray luminosities and gas masses exceed or are at the upper end of the model predictions. For NGC 1961 and NGC 6753 the observed gas temperatures, metal abundances, and electron density profiles broadly agree with those predicted by Illustris. These results hint that the physics modules of Illustris are broadly consistent with the observed properties of hot coronae around spiral galaxies. However, a shortcoming of Illustris is that massive black holes, mostly residing in giant ellipticals, give rise to powerful radio-mode AGN feedback, which results in under luminous coronae for ellipticals.

12 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (11)

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• Probing the Hot X-ray Corona around the Massive Spiral Galaxy, NGC 6753, Using Deep XMM-Newton observations
• Galaxy mergers moulding the circum-galactic medium - I. The impact of a major merger
• Planets Around Low-Mass Stars (PALMS). VI. Discovery of a Remarkably Red Planetary-Mass Companion to the AB Dor Moving Group Candidate 2MASS J22362452+4751425
• Probing the Anisotropy of the Milky Way Gaseous Halo-II: sightline toward Mrk509
• Characterizing the feedback of magnetic field on the differential rotation of solar-like stars
• The Circum-Galactic Medium of MASsive Spirals I: Overview and a Case Study of NGC 5908
• The HIX galaxy survey I: Study of the most gas rich galaxies from HIPASS
• The diversity of the circumgalactic medium around z = 0 Milky Way-mass galaxies from the Auriga simulations
• A hot gaseous galaxy halo candidate with Mg X absorption
• Properties of the circumgalactic medium in simulations compared to observations