X-ray Observation of a Magnetized Hot Gas Outflow in the Galactic Center Region

Abstract

We report the discovery of a $1^{\circ }$ scale X-ray plume in the northern Galactic Center (GC) region observed with Suzaku. The plume is located at ($l$, $b$) $\sim$ ($0\mbox{$.\!\!^\circ$}2$, $0\mbox{$.\!\!^\circ$}6$), east of the radio lobe reported by previous studies. No significant X-ray excesses are found inside or to the west of the radio lobe. The spectrum of the plume exhibits strong emission lines from highly ionized Mg, Si, and S that is reproduced by a thin thermal plasma model with $kT\sim 0.7$ keV and solar metallicity. There is no signature of non-equilibrium ionization. The unabsorbed surface brightness is $3\times 10^{-14}$ erg cm${}^{-2}$ s${}^{-1}$ arcmin${}^{-2}$ in the 1.5-3.0 keV band. Strong interstellar absorption in the soft X-ray band indicates that the plume is not a foreground source but is at the GC distance, giving a physical size of $\sim$100 pc, a density of 0.1 cm${}^{-3}$, thermal pressure of $1\times 10^{-10}$ erg cm${}^{-3}$, mass of 600 $M_{\odot }$ and thermal energy of $7\times 10^{50}$ erg. From the apparent association with a polarized radio emission, we propose that the X-ray plume is a magnetized hot gas outflow from the GC.

arXiv comment9 pages, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (26)

• On the Absorption of X-rays in the Interstellar Medium
• Giant Gamma-ray Bubbles from Fermi-LAT: AGN Activity or Bipolar Galactic Wind?
• Theoretical Challenges in Galaxy Formation
• Updated Atomic Data and Calculations for X-ray Spectroscopy
• Abundances of the elements in the solar system
• The Spectrum and Morphology of the Fermi Bubbles
• The Large-scale Bipolar Wind in the Galactic Center
• Adaptive Binning of X-ray data with Weighted Voronoi Tesselations
• Spatial distribution of interstellar gas in the innermost 3 kpc of our Galaxy
• Diffuse X-ray Emission in a Deep Chandra Image of the Galactic Center
• Discovery of a superluminal Fe K echo at the Galactic Center: The glorious past of Sgr A* preserved by molecular clouds
• The XMM-Newton view of the central degrees of the Milky Way
• New CTI Correction Method for the Spaced-Row Charge Injection of the Suzaku X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer
• The Chandra COSMOS legacy survey: Energy Spectrum of the Cosmic X-ray Background and constraints on undetected populations
• The K-shell Line Distribution of Heavy Elements along the Galactic Plane Observed with Suzaku
• Ionization States and Plasma Structures of Mixed-morphology SNRs Observed with ASCA
• X-ray Echo from the Sagittarius C Complex and 500-year Activity History of Sagittarius A*
• Discovery of the recombining plasma in the south of the Galactic center; a relic of the past Galactic center activity?
• GBT Multiwavelength Survey of the Galactic Center Region
• A Multiwavelength View of a Mass Outflow from the Galactic Center
• Scale heights and equivalent widths of the iron K-shell lines in the Galactic diffuse X-ray emission
• Radio Recombination Lines toward the Galactic Center Lobe
• Suzaku Spectroscopy Study of Hard X-Ray Emission in the Arches Cluster
• Discovery of possible molecular counterparts to the infrared Double Helix Nebula in the Galactic center
• XMM-Newton observations of the Galactic Centre Region - II: The soft thermal emission
• Origin of the low-temperature plasma in the Galactic center X-ray emission

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Cool Outflows in Galaxies and their Implications
• The 1.28 GHz MeerKAT Galactic Center Mosaic
• Simulations of the Milky Way's central molecular zone -- I. Gas dynamics
• The Galactic center chimneys: The base of the multiphase outflow of the Milky Way
• Cosmic-ray driven outflow from the galactic center and the origin of magnetized radio filaments
• A novel analytical model of the magnetic field configuration in the Galactic Center
• A Supernova-driven, Magnetically-collimated Outflow as the Origin of the Galactic Center Radio Bubbles
• Chandra large-scale mapping of the Galactic center: Probing high-energy structures around the central molecular zone
• Galactic Centre Threads as Nuclear MHD Waves
• Analytical and numerical studies of central galactic outflows powered by tidal disruption events -- a model for the Fermi bubbles?
• A mean density of $112M_{\odot }\mathrm{p}{\mathrm{c}}^{-3}$ for Central Molecular Zone clumps -- Evidences for shear-enabled pressure equilibrium in the Galactic Center
• Supernova-remnant origin of the Galactic-Centre filaments
• Cold molecular gas in the hot nuclear wind of the Milky Way
• Evidence for powerful winds and the associated reverse shock as the origin of the Fermi bubbles
• Sources and Radiations of the Fermi Bubbles
• High Energy Emission from the Galactic Center