Imaging the Circumnuclear Region of NGC 1365 with Chandra
Abstract
We present the first Chandra/ACIS imaging study of the circumnuclear region of the nearby Seyfert galaxy NGC 1365. The X-ray emission is resolved into pointlike sources and complex, extended emission. The X-ray morphology of the extended emission shows a biconical soft X-ray-emission region extending ~5 kpc in projection from the nucleus, coincident with the high-excitation outflow cones seen in optical emission lines particularly to the northwest. Harder X-ray emission is detected from a kpc-diameter circumnuclear ring, coincident with the star-forming ring prominent in the Spitzer mid-infrared (IR) images; this X-ray emission is partially obscured by the central dust lane of NGC 1365. Spectral fitting of spatially separated components indicates a thermal plasma origin for the soft extended X-ray emission (kT = 0.57 keV). Only a small amount of this emission can be due to photoionization by the nuclear source. Detailed comparison with [O III]λ5007 observations shows that the hot interstellar medium (ISM) is spatially anticorrelated with the [O III]-emitting clouds and has thermal pressures comparable to those of the [O III] media, suggesting that the hot ISM acts as a confining medium for the cooler photoionized clouds. The abundance ratios of the hot ISM are fully consistent with the theoretical values for enrichment from Type II supernovae, suggesting that the hot ISM is a wind from the starburst circumnuclear ring. X-ray emission from a ~450 pc long nuclear radio jet is also detected to the southeast.
Additional Information
© 2009 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2008 September 25; accepted 2008 December 30; published 2009 March 19. We thank an anonymous referee for helpful comments that improved the clarity of the manuscript. We are grateful to S. Veilleux for providing us the [O iii] images in Veilleux et al. (2003), and Tim Kallman for the helpful information about XSTAR. J. W. thanks A. Baldi for his help in the data analysis, H. Oti Floranes for providing the model results in Mas-Hesse et al. (2008), and A. Siemiginowska for helpful discussion on radio jets. G. F. and M. E. acknowledge stimulating discussions at the Aspen Center for Physics workshop on Active Galactic Nuclei. This work is supported by NASA Contract NAS8-39073 (CXC) and Chandra GO Grant G06-7102X (PI: Risaliti).Attached Files
Published - Wang2009p1361Astrophys_J.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 14447
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20090624-142837786
- NAS8-39073
- NASA
- G06-7102X
- Chandra GO
- Created
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2009-08-29Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field