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THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA University Libraries Hot Diffuse Emission in the Nuclear Starburst Region of NGC 2903 Jimmy A. Irwin – University of Alabama et al. Deposited 09/12/2018 Citation of published version: Yukita, M., et al. (2012): Hot Diffuse Emission in the Nuclear Starburst Region of NGC 2903. The Astrophysical Journal, 758(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/758/2/105 © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. The Astrophysical Journal, 758:105 (17pp), 2012 October 20 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/758/2/105 C 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. HOT DIFFUSE EMISSION IN THE NUCLEAR STARBURST REGION OF NGC 2903 Mihoko Yukita1, Douglas A. Swartz2, Allyn F. Tennant3, Roberto Soria4, and Jimmy A. Irwin1 1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA 2 Universities Space Research Association, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, ZP12, Huntsville, AL 35812, USA 3 Space Science Office, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, ZP12, Huntsville, AL 35812, USA 4 International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA 6845, Australia Received 2012 June 14; accepted 2012 August 30; published 2012 October 5 ABSTRACT We present a deep Chandra observation of the central regions of the late-type barred spiral galaxy NGC 2903. The Chandra data reveal soft (kTe ∼ 0.2–0.5 keV) diffuse emission in the nuclear starburst region and extending ∼2 (∼5 kpc) to the north and west of the nucleus. Much of this soft hot gas is likely to be from local active star-forming regions; however, besides the nuclear region, the morphology of hot gas does not strongly correlate with the bar or other known sites of active star formation. The central ∼650 pc radius starburst zone exhibits much higher surface brightness diffuse emission than the surrounding regions and a harder spectral component in addition to a soft component similar to the surrounding zones. We interpret the hard component as also being of thermal origin with kTe ∼ 3.6 keV and to be directly associated with a wind fluid produced by supernovae and massive star winds similar to the hard diffuse emission seen in the starburst galaxy M82. The inferred terminal velocity for this hard component, ∼1100 km s−1, exceeds the local galaxy escape velocity suggesting a potential outflow into the halo and possibly escape from the galaxy gravitational potential. Morphologically, the softer extended emission from nearby regions does not display an obvious outflow geometry. However, the column density through which the X-rays are transmitted is lower in the zone to the west of the nucleus compared to that from the east and the surface brightness is relatively higher suggesting some of the soft hot gas originates from above the disk: viewed directly from the western zone but through the intervening disk of the host galaxy along sight lines from the eastern zone. There are several point-like sources embedded in the strong diffuse nuclear emission zone. Their X-ray spectra show them to likely be compact binaries. None of these detected point sources are coincident with the mass center of the galaxy and we place an upper limit luminosity from any point-like nuclear source to be <2 × 1038 erg s−1 in the 0.5–8.0 keV band, which indicates that NGC 2903 lacks an active galactic nucleus. Heating from the nuclear starburst and a galactic wind may be responsible for preventing cold gas from accreting onto the galactic center. Key words: galaxies: evolution – galaxies: individual (NGC 2903) – galaxies: nuclei – X-rays: galaxies Online-only material: color figures 1. INTRODUCTION holes (Davies et al. 2010; Thompson et al. 2005), or it may enhance fueling of black holes if the starburst occurs very near Stellar bars are common features of disk galaxies (Masters the central compact object (Watabe et al. 2008). et al. 2011; Sellwood 1993;Buta2011) where they efficiently The study of structures such as bars and circumnuclear rings channel gas into the central regions. The dynamics of bars is in X-ray light can directly reveal details that are hidden at many critical to galactic (pseudo) bulge growth and hence to evolution other wavelengths. The X-ray morphology not only helps to along the Hubble sequence (Kormendy & Kennicutt 2004) and pinpoint locations of recent star formation but also traces high- to fueling central supermassive black holes (e.g., Shlosman et al. pressure hot gas wind fluid that may quench star formation, 1990) in isolated galaxies. In isolated late-type disk galaxies, impede accretion toward the galactic center, and drive energetic stellar bars can efficiently transport gas into their central regions outflows. The best subjects for X-ray studies of these phenomena because of their relatively low bulge masses compared to early- are isolated nearby galaxies inclined enough to distinguish type disks. Gas may accumulate at the ends of the bar before galactic outflows while leaving the nucleus exposed to direct being driven inward by the gravitational torques within the bar view and galaxies lacking strong active galactic nucleus (AGN) (Combes & Elmegreen 1993). The gas forms thin “centered” activity which could mask the fainter X-ray emission from dust lanes along the bar (Athanassoula 1992). There is less circumnuclear star formation. shear in the bars of late-type disks giving rise to substantial star NGC 2903 is a nearby (8.9 Mpc, 1 = 43 pc; Drozdovsky formation along the bar. & Karachentsev 2000) late-type barred SAB(rs)bc galaxy with There are often no central resonances in late-type disks, strong circumnuclear star formation. NGC 2903 was first classi- in contrast to bars in early-type disks; the bar extends to fied as having a central concentration of multiple bright hotspots about the turnover radius of the rotation curve, near the inner superposed on a fainter background in an early galaxy classifica- Lindblad resonance, and corotation occurs even further out in tion scheme (Morgan 1958) based on central light morphologies the disk (e.g., Shlosman 1999). In this case, accretion does (see also Sersic´ & Pastoriza 1965, 1967). These hotspots have not stall to form a circumnuclear ring but accumulates until since been identified as young massive star clusters in opti- self-gravity leads to burst-like episodes (Sarzi et al. 2007)of cal and near-IR images interspersed with numerous bright H ii star formation—inflow may be impeded by stellar feedback regions (Planesas et al. 1997; Alonso-Herrero et al. 2001;Hagele¨ but not by resonance phenomena as in early-type disks. Star et al. 2009) within an ∼650 pc diameter circumnuclear star- formation and feedback can deplete the gas reservoir even at forming region. The star formation rate (SFR) in this region −1 small distances beyond the sphere of influence of central black alone is ∼0.7 M yr (Alonso-Herrero et al. 2001; Leon et al. 1 The Astrophysical Journal, 758:105 (17pp), 2012 October 20 Yukita et al. 2008). This nuclear region is bright at wavelengths from X-rays gain (with CALDB 4.3.0). Then, bad and hot pixels as well (Tschoke¨ et al. 2003;Perez-Ram´ ´ırez et al. 2010), UV (e.g., as bad status bits and grades were filtered out to create a level Popping et al. 2010), optical, and mid-IR, to CO (Sheth et al. 2 event file. In order to identify any background flares, a light 2002;Helferetal.2003), HCN (Leon et al. 2008), and radio curve, binned to 500 s increments, was created from events in (Wynn-Williams & Becklin 1985;Tsaietal.2006). For the most the energy range of 10–12 keV where the telescope mirrors part, the nuclear region displays a patchy morphology with lit- were insensitive to X-rays. Background flares were identified tle obvious symmetry. Perhaps the precise center is best seen and removed using the 3σ clipping method5 which resulted in in high-resolution H-band images (e.g., Perez-Ram´ ´ırez et al. 92 ks of the final good time interval for this observation. The 2000; Alonso-Herrero et al. 2001), where a two-arm nuclear angular resolution of the Chandra mirrors is slightly better than spiral pattern is also evident. the pixel resolution of the ACIS detector. Hence, we created a The nuclear region of NGC 2903 is clearly being fueled by subpixel resolution image in the nuclear region by applying the an inflow of gas along its bar (Hernandez et al. 2005; Leon et al. subpixel event-repositioning algorithm “EDSER” of Li et al. 2008). The total SFR along the bar is comparable to the rate in (2004), which became available in CIAO v.4.3. For the rest of −1 the nuclear region, ∼0.7 M yr (Leon et al. 2008; Popping the galaxy, the standard 0.49 pixel resolution image was created. et al. 2010). The stellar bar extends roughly 1 (∼2.5 kpc) from X-ray emission in star-forming galaxies like NGC 2903 arises the nucleus at a P.A. of 24◦ (Sheth et al. 2002). A strong, nearly from various sources including bright X-ray binaries (appearing unbroken dust lane along the bar is clearly visible in molecular as relatively hard point-like sources), diffuse hot gas from bands (Sheth et al. 2002; Leon et al. 2008). The dust lane leads supernovae and massive star winds, and underlying emission the stellar bar (P.A. ∼ 30◦, rotation is counterclockwise (CCW) from numerous fainter unresolved X-ray binaries. Figure 1 and the disk is inclined ∼60◦) but trails active star formation, displays a 4 × 6 three-band optical image of NGC 2903 visible as a curved string of numerous bright H ii regions further obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; York et al.

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