English

Diffuse X-Ray Sky in the Galactic Center

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2017-08-21 v1

Abstract

The Galactic Diffuse X-ray Emission (GDXE) in the Milky Way Galaxy is spatially and spectrally decomposed into the Galactic Center X-ray Emission (GCXE), the Galactic Ridge X-ray Emission (GRXE) and the Galactic Bulge X-ray Emission (GBXE). The X-ray spectra of the GDXE are characterized by the strong K-shell lines of the highly ionized atoms, the brightest are the K-shell transition (principal quantum number transition of n=21n=2\rightarrow1) of neutral iron (SXV-Heα\alpha), He-like iron (FeXXV-Heα\alpha) and He-like sulfur (SXV-Heα\alpha) lines. Accordingly, the GDXE is composed of a high-temperature plasma of \sim7 keV (HTP) and a low-temperature plasma of \sim1 keV (LTP), which emit the FeXXV-Heα\alpha and SXV-Heα\alpha lines, respectively. The FeI-Kα\alpha line is emitted from nearly neutral irons, and hence the third component of the GDXE is a Cool Gas (CG). The FeI-Kα\alpha distribution in the GCXE region is clumpy (FeI-Kα\alpha clump), associated with giant molecular cloud (MC) complexes, Sagittarius A, B, C, D and E, in the central molecular zone. The origin of the FeI-Kα\alpha clumps is the fluorescence and Thomson scattering from the MCs irradiated by past big flares of the super massive black hole Sagittarius A^*. The scale heights and equivalent widths of the FeI-Kα\alpha, FeXXV-Heα\alpha, and FeXXVI-Lyα\alpha (n=21n=2\rightarrow1 transition of H-like iron) lines are different among the GCXE, GBXE and GRXE. Therefore the structure and origin are separately examined. This paper overviews the research history and the present understandings of the GDXE, in particular focus on the origin of the HTP and CG in the GCXE.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1708.05501,
  title  = {Diffuse X-Ray Sky in the Galactic Center},
  author = {Katsuji Koyama},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.05501},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

46 pages, 9 figures, 15 tables, accepted to PASJ, but some figures are missing from the original PASJ paper (24 figures) due to the memory limit of figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T21:17:42.190Z