arXiv subjects

Chong Ge

Publications and source records attributed to Chong Ge.

30 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

An H$α$/X-ray orphan cloud as a signpost of the intracluster medium clumping

Recent studies have highlighted the potential significance of intracluster medium (ICM) clumping and its important implications for cluster cosmology and baryon physics. Many of the ICM clumps can originate from infalling galaxies, as stripped interstellar medium (ISM) mixing into the hot ICM. However, a direct connection between ICM clumping and stripped ISM has not been unambiguously established before. Here we present the discovery of the first and still the only known isolated cloud (or orphan cloud, OC) detected in both X-rays and H$α$ in the nearby cluster Abell 1367. With an effective radius of 30 kpc, this cloud has an average X-ray temperature of 1.6 keV, a bolometric X-ray luminosity of $\sim 3.1\times 10^{41}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and a hot gas mass of $\sim 10^{10}\ {\rm M}_\odot$. From the MUSE data, the OC shows an interesting velocity gradient nearly along the east-west direction with a low level of velocity dispersion of $\sim 80$ km/s, which may suggest a low level of the ICM turbulence. The emission line diagnostics suggest little star formation in the main H$α$ cloud and a LI(N)ER-like spectrum, but the excitation mechanism remain unclear. This example shows that the stripped ISM, even long time after the initial removal from the galaxy, can still induce the ICM inhomogeneities. We suggest that magnetic field can stabilize the OC by suppressing hydrodynamic instabilities and thermal conduction. This example also suggests that at least some ICM clumps are multi-phase in nature and implies that the ICM clumps can also be traced in H$α$. Thus, future deep and wide-field H$α$ survey can be used to probe the ICM clumping and turbulence.

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arXiv2021

Revealing a peculiar supernova remnant G106.3+2.7 as a petaelectronvolt proton accelerator with X-ray observations

Supernova remnants (SNRs) have long been considered as one of the most promising sources of Galactic cosmic rays. In the SNR paradigm, petaelectronvolt (PeV) proton acceleration may only be feasible at the early evolution stage, lasting a few hundred years, when the SNR shock speed is high. While evidence supporting the acceleration of PeV protons in young SNRs has yet to be discovered, X-ray synchrotron emission is an important indicator of fast shock. We here report the first discovery of X-ray synchrotron emission from the possibly middle-aged SNR G106.3+2.7, implying that this SNR is still an energetic particle accelerator despite its age. This discovery, along with the ambient environmental information, multiwavelength observation, and theoretical arguments, supports SNR G106.3+2.7 as a likely powerful PeV proton accelerator.

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arXiv2020

Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of A2256: cold fronts, merger shocks, and constraint on the IC emission

We present the results of deep Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of a complex merging galaxy cluster Abell 2256 (A2256) that hosts a spectacular radio relic (RR). The temperature and metallicity maps show clear evidence of a merger between the western subcluster (SC) and the primary cluster (PC). We detect five X-ray surface brightness edges. Three of them near the cluster center are cold fronts (CFs): CF1 is associated with the infalling SC; CF2 is located in the east of the PC; and CF3 is to the west of the PC core. The other two edges at cluster outskirts are shock fronts (SFs): SF1 near the RR in the NW has Mach numbers derived from the temperature and the density jumps, respectively, of $M_T=1.62\pm0.12$ and $M_ρ=1.23\pm0.06$; SF2 in the SE has $M_T=1.54\pm0.05$ and $M_ρ=1.16\pm0.13$. In the region of the RR, there is no evidence for the correlation between X-ray and radio substructures, from which we estimate an upper limit for the inverse-Compton emission, and therefore set a lower limit on the magnetic field ($\sim$ 450 kpc from PC center) of $B>1.0\ μ$G for a single power-law electron spectrum or $B>0.4\ μ$G for a broken power-law electron spectrum. We propose a merger scenario including a PC, an SC, and a group. Our merger scenario accounts for the X-ray edges, diffuse radio features, and galaxy kinematics, as well as projection effects.

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arXiv2020

The ram pressure stripped radio tails of galaxies in the Coma cluster

Previous studies have revealed a population of galaxies in galaxy clusters with ram pressure stripped (RPS) tails of gas and embedded young stars. We observed 1.4 GHz continuum and HI emission with the Very Large Array in its B-configuration in two fields of the Coma cluster to study the radio properties of RPS galaxies. The best continuum sensitivities in the two fields are 6 and 8 $μ$Jy per 4'' beam respectively, which are 4 and 3 times deeper than those previously published. Radio continuum tails are found in 10 (8 are new) out of 20 RPS galaxies, unambiguously revealing the presence of relativistic electrons and magnetic fields in the stripped tails. Our results also hint that the tail has a steeper spectrum than the galaxy. The 1.4 GHz continuum in the tails is enhanced relative to their H$α$ emission by a factor of $\sim$7 compared to the main bodies of the RPS galaxies. The 1.4 GHz continuum of the RPS galaxies is also enhanced relative to their IR emission by a factor of $\sim$2 compared to star-forming galaxies. The enhancement is likely related to ram pressure and turbulence in the tail. We furthermore present HI detections in three RPS galaxies and upper limits for the other RPS galaxies. The cold gas in D100's stripped tail is dominated by molecular gas, which is likely a consequence of the high ambient pressure. No evidence of radio emission associated with ultra-diffuse galaxies is found in our data.

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arXiv2020

AGN feedback in the FR II galaxy 3C 220.1

We present results from a deep (174 ks) Chandra observation of the FR-II radio galaxy 3C 220.1, the central brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) of a $kT \sim$ 4 keV cluster at $z=0.61$. The temperature of the hot cluster medium drops from $\sim5.9$ keV to $\sim3.9$ keV at $\sim$ 35 kpc radius, while the temperature at smaller radii may be substantially lower. The central active galactic nucleus (AGN) outshines the whole cluster in X-rays, with a bolometric luminosity of $2.0\times10^{46}$ erg s$^{-1}$ ($\sim10$% of the Eddington rate). The system shows a pair of potential X-ray cavities $\sim35$ kpc east and west of the nucleus. The cavity power is estimated within the range of $1.0\times10^{44}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and $1.7\times10^{45}$ erg s$^{-1}$, from different methods. The X-ray enhancements in the radio lobes could be due to inverse Compton emission, with a total 2-10 keV luminosity of $\sim8.0\times10^{42}$ erg s$^{-1}$. We compare 3C 220.1 with other cluster BCGs, including Cygnus A, as there are few BCGs in rich clusters hosting an FR-II galaxy. We also summarize the jet power of FR-II galaxies from different methods. The comparison suggests that the cavity power of FR-II galaxies likely under-estimates the jet power. The properties of 3C 220.1 suggest that it is at the transition stage from quasar-mode feedback to radio-mode feedback.

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arXiv2019

Constraining the magnetic field in the TeV halo of Geminga with X-ray Observation

Recently, the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) collaboration reported the discovery of the TeV halo around the Geminga pulsar. The TeV emission is believed to originate from inverse Compton scattering of pulsar-injected electrons/positrons off cosmic microwave background photons. In the mean time, these electrons should inevitably radiate X-ray photons via the synchrotron radiation, providing a useful constraint on the magnetic field in the TeV halo. In this work, we analyse the data of XMM-Newton and Chandra, and obtain an upper limit for the diffuse X-ray flux in a region of $600''$ around the Geminga pulsar, which is at a level of $\lesssim 10^{-14}\rm erg\,cm^{-2}s^{-1}$. Through a numerical modelling on both the X-ray and the TeV observations assuming isotropic diffusion of injected electrons/positrons, we find the magnetic field inside the TeV halo is required to be $<1μ$G, which is significantly weaker than the typical magnetic field in the interstellar medium. The weak magnetic field together with the small diffusion coefficient inferred from HAWC's observation implies that the Bohm limit of particle diffusion may probably have been achieved in the TeV halo. We also discuss alternative possibilities for the weak X-ray emission, such as the hadronic origin of the TeV emission or a specific magnetic field topology, in which a weak magnetic field and a very small diffusion coefficient might be avoided.

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arXiv2019

A merger shock in Abell 1367

Multi-wavelength observations show that Abell 1367 (A1367) is a dynamically young cluster, with at least two subclusters merging along the SE-NW direction. With the wide-field XMM-Newton mosaic of A1367, we discover a previously unknown merger shock at the NW edge of the cluster. We estimate the shock Mach number from the density and temperature jumps as $M_ρ=1.21\pm0.08$ and $M_T=1.60\pm0.07$, respectively. This shock region also corresponds to a radio relic discovered with the VLA and GBT, which could be produced by the shock re-acceleration of pre-existing seed relativistic electrons. We suggest that some of the seed relativistic electrons originate from late-type, star-forming galaxies in this region.

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arXiv2019

X-ray scaling relations from a complete sample of the richest maxBCG clusters

We use a complete sample of 38 richest maxBCG clusters to study the ICM-galaxy scaling relations and the halo mass selection properties of the maxBCG algorithm, based on X-ray and optical observations. The clusters are selected from the two largest bins of optical richness in the Planck stacking work with the maxBCG richness $N_{200} \geq 78$. We analyze their Chandra and XMM-Newton data to derive the X-ray properties of the ICM. We then use the distribution of $P(X|N)$, $X=T_X,\ L_X,\ Y_X$, to study the mass selection $P(M|N)$ of maxBCG. Compared with previous works based on the whole richness sample, a significant fraction of blended systems with boosted richness is skewed into this richest sample. Parts of the blended halos are picked apart by the redMaPPer, an updated red-sequence cluster finding algorithm with lower mass scatter. Moreover, all the optical blended halos are resolved as individual X-ray halos, following the established $L_X-T_X$ and $L_X-Y_X$ relations. We further discuss that the discrepancy between ICM-galaxy scaling relations, especially for future blind stacking, can come from several factors, including miscentering, projection, contamination of low mass systems, mass bias and covariance bias. We also evaluate the fractions of relaxed and cool core clusters in our sample. Both are smaller than those from SZ or X-ray selected samples. Moreover, disturbed clusters show a higher level of mass bias than relaxed clusters.

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arXiv2018

Probing the dynamical state, baryon content, and multiphase nature of galaxy clusters with bright background QSOs

We have initiated a programme to study the physical/dynamical state of gas in galaxy clusters and the impact of the cluster environment on gaseous halos of individual galaxies using X-ray imaging and UV absorption line spectroscopy of background QSOs. Here we report results from the analysis Chandra and XMM-Newton archival data of five galaxy clusters with such QSOs, one of which has an archival UV spectrum. We characterize the gravitational masses and dynamical states, as well as the hot intracluster medium (ICM) properties of these clusters. Most clusters are dynamically disturbed clusters based on the X-ray morphology parameters, the X-ray temperature profiles, the large offset between X-ray peak and brightest cluster galaxy (BCG). The baryon contents in the hot ICM and stars of these clusters within $r_{500}$ are lower than the values expected from the gravitational masses, according to the standard cosmology. We also estimate column densities of the hot ICM along the sightlines toward the background QSOs as well as place upper limits on the warm-hot phase for the one sightline with existing UV observations. These column densities, compared with those of the warm and warm-hot ICM to be measured with UV absorption line spectroscopy, will enable us to probe the relationship among various gaseous phases and their connection to the heating/cooling and dynamical processes of the clusters. Furthermore, our analysis of the archival QSO spectrum probing one cluster underscores the need for high quality, targeted UV observations to robustly constrain the 10$^{5-6}$ K gas phase.

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arXiv2018

Can winds driven by active galactic nuclei account for the extragalactic gamma-ray and neutrino backgrounds?

Various observations are revealing the widespread occurrence of fast and powerful winds in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that are distinct from relativistic jets, likely launched from accretion disks and interacting strongly with the gas of their host galaxies. During the interaction, strong shocks are expected to form that can accelerate non-thermal particles to high energies. Such winds have been suggested to be responsible for a large fraction of the observed extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGB) in the GeV-TeV range and the diffuse neutrino background in the PeV range, via the decay of neutral and charged pions generated in inelastic $pp$ collisions between protons accelerated by the forward shock and the ambient gas. However, previous studies did not properly account for processes such as adiabatic losses that may reduce the gamma-ray and neutrino fluxes significantly. We evaluate the production of gamma-rays and neutrinos by AGN-driven winds in some detail by modeling their hydrodynamic and thermal evolution, including the effects of their two-temperature structure. We find that they can only account for less than $\sim 30$% of the EGB flux, as otherwise the model would violate the independent upper limit derived from the diffuse isotropic gamma-ray background. If the neutrino spectral index is steep with $Γ\gtrsim 2.2$, a severe tension with the isotropic gamma-ray background would arise as long as the winds contribute more than $20$% of the IceCube neutrino flux in the $10-100$TeV range. Nevertheless, at energies $\gtrsim100$~TeV, we find that the IceCube neutrino flux may still be accountable by AGN-driven winds if the spectral index is as small as $Γ\sim2.0-2.1$. The detectability of gamma-ray point sources also provides important constraints on such scenarios.

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arXiv2016

Baryon content and dynamic state of galaxy clusters: XMM-Newton observations of A1095 and A1926

We have initiated a program to study the baryon content and dynamic state of galaxy clusters. Here we present results primarily from XMM-Newton observations of two optically-selected galaxy clusters, A1095 ($z \simeq 0.210$) and A1926 ($z \simeq 0.136$). We find that both of them are actually cluster pairs at similar redshifts. We characterize the temperatures of these individual clusters through X-ray spectral fits and then estimate their gravitational masses. We show a rich set of substructures, including large position offsets between the diffuse X-ray centroids and the brightest galaxies of the clusters, which suggests that they are dynamically young. For both A1095 and A1926, we find that the mass required for the cluster pairs to be bound is smaller than the total gravitational mass. Thus both cluster pairs appear to be ongoing major mergers. Incorporating SDSS and NVSS/FIRST data, we further examine the large-scale structure environment and radio emission of the clusters to probe their origins, which also leads to the discovery of two additional X-ray-emitting clusters ($z \simeq 0.097$ and $z \simeq 0.147$) in the field of A1926. We estimate the hot gas and stellar masses of each cluster, which compared with the expected cosmological baryonic mass fraction, leave ample room for warm gas.

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arXiv2015

X-ray emissivity of old stellar populations: a local group census

We study the unresolved X-ray emission in three Local Group dwarf elliptical galaxies (NGC 147, NGC 185 and NGC 205) using XMM-Newton observations, which most likely originates from a collection of weak X-ray sources, mainly cataclysmic variables and coronally active binaries. Precise knowledge of this stellar X-ray emission is crucial not only for understanding the relevant stellar astrophysics but also for disentangling and quantifying the thermal emission from diffuse hot gas in nearby galaxies.We find that the integrated X-ray emissivities of the individual dwarf ellipticals agree well with that of the Solar vicinity, supporting an often assumed but untested view that the X-ray emissivity of old stellar populations is quasi-universal in normal galactic environments, in which dynamical effects on the formation and destruction of binary systems are not important. The average X-ray emissivity of the dwarf ellipticals, including M32 studied in the literature, is measured to be $L_{0.5-2\ \rm {keV}}/M_{\ast} = (6.0 \pm 0.5 \pm 1.8) \times 10^{27} \ \rm{erg \ s^{-1} \ M_\odot^{-1}}$. We also compare this value to the integrated X-ray emissivities of Galactic globular clusters and old open clusters and discuss the role of dynamical effects in these dense stellar systems.

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