English

X-ray emission from the nuclear region of Arp 220

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2017-05-31 v2

Abstract

We present an imaging and spectral analysis of the nuclear region of the ULIRG merger Arp 220, using deep \textit{Chandra}-ACIS observations summing up to 300\mboxks\sim 300\mbox{ ks}. Narrow-band imaging with sub-pixel resolution of the innermost nuclear region reveals two distinct Fe-K emitting sources, coincident with the infrared and radio nuclear clusters. These sources are separated by 1' (380\sim 380 pc). The X-ray emission is extended and elongated in the eastern nucleus, like the disk emission observed in millimeter radio images, suggesting starburst dominance in this region. We estimate Fe-K equivalent width 1\gtrsim 1 keV for both sources, and observed 2-10 keV luminosities 2×1040\mboxerg\mboxs1\sim 2\times{10}^{40}\mbox{ erg}\mbox{ s}^{-1} (W) and 3×1040\mboxerg\mboxs1\sim 3 \times {10}^{40}\mbox{ erg}\mbox{ s}^{-1} (E). In the 6-7 keV band the emission from these regions is dominated by the 6.7 keV Fe \textsc{xxv} line, suggesting contribution from collisionally ionized gas. The thermal energy content of this gas is consistent with kinetic energy injection in the interstellar medium by Type II SNe. However, nuclear winds from hidden AGN (\varv2000\mboxkm\mboxs1\varv\sim 2000 \mbox{ km}\mbox{ s}^{-1}) cannot be excluded. The 3σ3\sigma upper limits on the neutral Fe-Kα\alpha flux of the nuclear regions correspond to intrinsic AGN 2-10 keV luminosities <1×1042\mboxerg\mboxs1< 1\times {10}^{42}\mbox{ erg}\mbox{ s}^{-1} (W) and <0.4×1042\mboxerg\mboxs1< 0.4\times {10}^{42}\mbox{ erg}\mbox{ s}^{-1} (E). For typical AGN SEDs the bolometric luminosities are <3×1043\mboxerg\mboxs1< 3\times {10}^{43}\mbox{ erg}\mbox{ s}^{-1} (W) and <8×1043\mboxerg\mboxs1< 8\times {10}^{43}\mbox{ erg}\mbox{ s}^{-1} (E), and black hole masses <1×105M\astrosun<1\times{10}^5 M_{\astrosun} (W) and <5×105M\astrosun< 5\times{10}^5 M_{\astrosun} (E) for Eddington limited AGNs with a standard 10\% efficiency.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1705.01547,
  title  = {X-ray emission from the nuclear region of Arp 220},
  author = {Alessandro Paggi and Giuseppina Fabbiano and Guido Risaliti and Junfeng Wang and Margarita Karovska and Martin Elvis and W. Peter Maksym and Jonathan McDowell and Jay Gallagher},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.01547},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

13 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication on ApJ. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1303.2630