ROSAT-HRI investigation of the NGC 507 X-ray halo

Abstract

We present an X-ray investigation of the elliptical galaxy NGC 507. We make use of archival Rosat HRI, PSPC and Chandra data, to connect the large-scale structure of the halo to the core morphology. Our analysis shows that the halo core (r<2-3 r_e) and the external halo (r>3 r_e) are characterised by different dynamical properties and suggests a different origin of the two components. The halo core has a complex morphology with a main X-ray emission peak, coincident with the center of the optical galaxy, and several secondary peaks. The spatial and spectral analysis of the central peak shows that this feature is produced by denser hot gas in the galaxy core. Our data support the scenario where the gas is kinetically heated by stellar mass losses. Comparison with previously published studies suggest that the core of X-ray extended galaxies is associated to the stellar distribution and has similar properties to the X-ray halo of compact galaxies. The secondary peaks are due instead to interactions between the radio-emitting plasma and the surrounding ISM. We found that the energy input by the central radio source in the ISM may be large enough to prevent gas from cooling. The total mass profile shows the presence of a dark matter halo extending on cluster scales which is likely to be associated with the whole cluster rather than with NGC 507. This structure is typical of many X-ray bright Early-Type galaxies and may explain the spatial and spectral differences with X-ray compact galaxies largely debated in literature. Finally we discuss the nature of the point sources detected in the HRI FOV.