Related papers: X-ray Emission from Elliptical Galaxies
We review the origin and structure of hot (cooling flow) gas in elliptical galaxies. X-ray observations can be used to determine the stellar mass to light ratio, the mass profiles of dark matter halos, and the interstellar magnetic field.…
The enormous range of X-ray luminosities among elliptical galaxies with similar optical luminosities can be attributed to large scatter and systematic variations in the dark halo mass determined from X-ray observations. The mean halo mass…
Galactic X-ray emission is a manifestation of various high-energy phenomena and processes. The brightest X-ray sources are typically accretion-powered objects: active galactic nuclei and low- or high-mass X-ray binaries. Such objects with…
Statistical properties of X-ray luminosity and temperature are studied for 52 early-type galaxies based on the ROSAT PSPC data. All of the X-ray luminous galaxies show largely extended emission with a radius of a few times of 10$r_e$, while…
If mass and angular momentum were conserved in cooling flows associated with luminous, slowly rotating elliptical galaxies, the inflowing hot gas would spin up, resulting in disks of cold gas and X-ray images that are highly flattened along…
We review estimates of the metallicities in elliptical galaxies, with an emphasis on recent results from the ASCA satellite. X-ray spectra of elliptical galaxies are adequately fit by models consisting of hot gas with subsolar Fe abundance…
The variation of temperature and density in the hot, X-ray emitting gas around massive, group dominant elliptical galaxies can be understood as a combination of gas ejected from evolving galactic stars and gas that accumulates in the outer…
I review the current understanding of the origin and nature of ``warm'' ionized gas in giant elliptical galaxies in the light of results of recent imaging and spectroscopic surveys. CCD imaging surveys have revealed that emission-line disks…
The slow inward flow of the hot gas in elliptical galaxy cooling flows is nearly impossible to detect directly due to instrumental limitations. However, in rotating galaxies, if the inflowing gas conserves angular momentum, it will…
We suggest the radii and luminosities of the X-ray emitting halos of elliptical galaxies define a fundamental plane with the star velocity dispersions, as for the corresponding optical observables. Since the X-ray emitting material usually…
Hot, X-ray emitting gaseous halos around massive elliptical galaxies are a result of both stellar mass loss and inflow toward the overdensity from which giant ellipticals and their associated galaxy groups formed. The metal abundance in…
Elliptical galaxies comprise primarily old stars, which collectively generate a long-lasting feedback via stellar mass-loss and Type Ia SNe. This feedback can be traced by X-ray-emitting hot gas in and around such galaxies, in which little…
We review the origin, evolution and physical nature of hot gas in elliptical galaxies and associated galaxy groups. Unanticipated recent X-ray observations with Chandra and XMM indicate much less cooling than previously expected.…
We explore the implications of the discovery of hard, power-law X-ray sources in the spectra of nearby elliptical galaxies for the origin of the X-ray background. The spectra of these sources are consistent with models of thermal…
The presence of hot X-ray emitting gas is ubiquitous in massive early-type galaxies. However, much less is known about the content and physical status of the hot X-ray gas in low-mass ellipticals. In the present paper we study the X-ray gas…
Optically-similar early-type galaxies are observed to have a large and poorly understood range in the amount of hot, X-ray-emitting gas they contain.To investigate the origin of this diversity, we studied the hot gas properties of all 42…
We determine X-ray temperatures and abundances for elliptical galaxies drawn from a complete, optically selected sample. The optical magnitude-limited sample consists of 43 galaxies, complete to a (corrected) B magnitude of m_B^o=11.36. Of…
The source of hot gas in elliptical galaxies is thought to be due to stellar mass loss, with contributions from supernova events and possibly from infall from a surrounding environment. This picture predicts supersolar values for the…
The X-ray colors and X-ray-to-optical luminosity ratios (L_X/L_B) of 61 early- type galaxies observed with the ROSAT PSPC are determined. The colors indicate that the X-ray spectral properties of galaxies vary as a function of L_X/L_B. The…
The evolution in X-ray properties of early-type galaxies is largely unconstrained. In particular, little is known about how, and if, remnants of mergers generate hot gas halos. Here we examine the relationship between X-ray luminosity and…