arXiv subjects

Q. Daniel Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Q. Daniel Wang.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Confronting feedback simulations with observations of hot gas in elliptical galaxies

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 cool gas is typically present. However, the X-ray-inferred mass, energy, and metal abundance of the hot gas are often found to be far less than what are expected from the feedback, particularly in so-called low L_X/L_B ellipticals. This "missing" stellar feedback is presumably lost in galaxy-wide outflows, which can play an essential role in galaxy evolution (e.g., explaining the observed color bi-modality of galaxies). We are developing a model that can be used to properly interpret the X-ray data and to extract key information about the dynamics of the feedback and its interplay with galactic environment.

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arXiv2010

X-raying Galaxies: A Chandra Legacy

This presentation reviews Chandra's major contribution to the understanding of nearby galaxies. After a brief summary on significant advances in characterizing various types of discrete X-ray sources, the presentation focuses on the global hot gas in and around galaxies, especially normal ones like our own. The hot gas is a product of stellar and AGN feedback -- the least understood part in theories of galaxy formation and evolution. Chandra observations have led to the first characterization of the spatial, thermal, chemical, and kinetic properties of the gas in our Galaxy. The gas is concentrated around the Galactic bulge and disk on scales of a few kpc. The column density of chemically-enriched hot gas on larger scales is at least an order magnitude smaller, indicating that it may not account for the bulk of the missing baryon matter predicted for the Galactic halo according to the standard cosmology. Similar results have also been obtained for other nearby galaxies. The X-ray emission from hot gas is well correlated with the star formation rate and stellar mass, indicating that the heating is primarily due to the stellar feedback. However, the observed X-ray luminosity of the gas is typically less than a few percent of the feedback energy. Thus the bulk of the feedback (including injected heavy elements) is likely lost in galaxy-wide outflows. The results are compared with simulations of the feedback to infer its dynamics and interplay with the circum-galactic medium, hence the evolution of galaxies.

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arXiv2010

Discovery of a Luminous Blue Variable with an Ejection Nebula Near the Quintuplet Cluster

We report on the discovery of a luminous blue variable (LBV) lying ~7 pc in projection from the Quintuplet cluster. This source, which we call LBV G0.120-0.048, was selected for spectroscopy owing to its detection as a strong source of Paschen-alpha excess in a recent narrowband imaging survey of the Galactic center region with HST/NICMOS. The K-band spectrum is similar to that of the Pistol Star and other known LBVs. The new LBV was previously cataloged as a photometric variable star, exhibiting brightness fluctuations of up to ~1 mag between 1994 and 1997, with significant variability also occurring on month-to-month time scales. The luminosity of LBV G0.120-0.048, as derived from 2MASS photometry, is approximately equivalent to that of the Pistol Star. However, the time-averaged brightness of LBV G0.120-0.048 between 1994 and 1997 exceeded that of the Pistol Star; LBV G0.120-0.048 also suffers more extinction, which suggests that it was intrinsically more luminous in the infrared than the Pistol Star between 1994 and 1997. Paschen-alpha images reveal a thin circular nebula centered on LBV G0.120-0.048 with a physical radius of ~0.8 pc. We suggest that this nebula is a shell of ejected material launched from a discrete eruption that occurred between 5000 and 10,000 years ago. Because of the very short amount of time that evolved massive stars spend in the LBV phase, and the close proximity of LBV G0.120-0.048 to the Quintuplet cluster, we suggest that this object might be coeval with the cluster and may have once resided within it.

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arXiv2009

The Radio Properties and Magnetic Field Configuration in the Crab-like Pulsar Wind Nebula G54.1+0.3

We present a multifrequency radio investigation of the Crab-like pulsar wind nebula (PWN) G54.1+0.3 using the Very Large Array. The high resolution of the observations reveals that G54.1+0.3 has a complex radio structure which includes filamentary and loop-like structures that are magnetized, a diffuse extent similar to the associated diffuse X-ray emission. But the radio and X-ray structures in the central region differ strikingly, indicating that they trace very different forms of particle injection from the pulsar and/or particle acceleration in the nebula. No spectral index gradient is detected in the radio emission across the PWN, whereas the X-ray emission softens outward in the nebula. The extensive radio polarization allows us to image in detail the intrinsic magnetic field, which is well-ordered and reveals that a number of loop-like filaments are strongly magnetized. In addition, we determine that there are both radial and toroidal components to the magnetic field structure of the pulsar wind nebula. Strong mid-IR emission detected in Spitzer Space Telescope data is closely correlated with the radio emission arising from the southern edge of G54.1+0.3. In particular, the distributions of radio and X-ray emission compared with the mid-IR emission suggest that the PWN may be interacting with this interstellar cloud. This may be the first PWN where we are directly detecting its interplay with an interstellar cloud that has survived the impact of the supernova explosion associated with the pulsar's progenitor.

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arXiv2009

Dynamic S0 Galaxies: a Case Study of NGC 5866

S0 galaxies are often thought to be passively evolved from spirals after star formation is quenched. To explore what is occurring in S0s, we present a multi-wavelength study of NGC5866--an isolated nearby edge-on S0. This study shows strong evidence for dynamic activities in the interstellar medium, which are most likely driven by supernova explosions in the galactic disk and bulge. We utilize Chandra, HST, and Spitzer data as well as ground-based observations to characterize the content, structure, and physical state of the medium and its interplay with stars in NGC5866. A cold gas disk is detected with an exponential scale height of 100pc. Numerous off-disk dusty spurs are clearly present: prominent ones can extend as far as 300pc from the galactic plane and are probably produced by individual SNe, whereas faint filaments can have ~ kpc scale and are likely produced by SNe collectively in disk/bulge. We also detect substantial amounts of diffuse Ha- and Pa-emitting gas with a comparable scale height as the cold gas. We find that the heating of the dust and warm ionized gas cannot be explained by the radiation from evolved stars alone, strongly indicating the presence of young stars in the disk at a low formation rate of ~ 0.05Msun/yr. We reveal the presence of diffuse X-ray-emitting hot gas, which extends as far as 3.5kpc from the disk and can be heated easily by Type Ia SNe in the bulge. However, the temperature of this gas is ~ 0.2keV, substantially lower than what might be expected from the mass-loss of evolved stars and Type Ia SNe heating alone, indicating mass loading from cool gas is important. The total masses of the cold, warm and hot gases are ~ 5*10^8, 10^4 and 3*10^7Msun. The relative richness of the gases, undergoing circulations between disk/halo, is perhaps a result of its relative isolation.

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arXiv2009

Global Hot Gas in and around the Galaxy

The hot interstellar medium traces the stellar feedback and its role in regulating the eco-system of the Galaxy. I review recent progress in understanding the medium, based largely on X-ray absorption line spectroscopy, complemented by X-ray emission and far-UV OVI absorption measurements. These observations enable us for the first time to characterize the global spatial, thermal, chemical, and kinematic properties of the medium. The results are generally consistent with what have been inferred from X-ray imaging of nearby galaxies similar to the Galaxy. It is clear that diffuse soft X-ray emitting/absorbing gas with a characteristic temperature of $\sim 10^6$ K resides primarily in and around the Galactic disk and bulge. In the solar neighborhood, for example, this gas has a characteristic vertical scale height of $\sim 1$ kpc. This conclusion does not exclude the presence of a larger-scale, probably much hotter, and lower density circum-Galactic hot medium, which is required to explain observations of various high-velocity clouds. This hot medium may be a natural product of the stellar feedback in the context of the galaxy formation and evolution.

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arXiv2009

M31* and its circumnuclear environment

We present a multiwavelength investigation of the circumnuclear environment of M31. Based on Chandra/ACIS data, we tightly constrain the X-ray luminosity of M31*, the central supermassive black hole of the galaxy, to be L (0.3-7 keV)<= 1.2x10^{36}erg/s, approximately 10^{-10} of the Eddington luminosity. From the diffuse X-ray emission, we characterize the circumnuclear hot gas with a temperature of ~0.3 keV and a density of ~0.1 cm^{-3}. In the absence of an active SMBH and recent star formation, the most likely heating source for the hot gas is Type Ia SNe. The presence of cooler, dusty gas residing in a nuclear spiral has long been known in terms of optical line emission and extinction. We further reveal the infrared emission of the nuclear spiral and evaluate the relative importance of various possible ionizing sources. We show evidence for interaction between the nuclear spiral and the hot gas, probably via thermal evaporation. This mechanism lends natural understandings to 1) the inactivity of M31*, in spite of a probably continuous supply of gas from outer disk regions, and 2) the launch of a bulge outflow of hot gas, primarily mass-loaded from the circumnuclear regions. One particular prediction of such a scenario is the presence of gas with intermediate temperatures arising from the conductive interfaces. The FUSE observations do show strong OVI$λ$1032 and 1038 absorption lines against the bulge starlight, but the effective OVI column density (~4x10^{14} cm^{-2}), may be attributed to foreground gas located in the bulge and/or the highly inclined disk of M31. Our study strongly argues that stellar feedback, particularly in the form of energy release from SNe Ia, may play an important role in regulating the evolution of SMBHs and the interstellar medium in galactic bulges.

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arXiv2009

Scalability of Hydrodynamic Simulations

Many hydrodynamic processes can be studied in a way that is scalable over a vastly relevant physical parameter space. We systematically examine this scalability, which has so far only briefly discussed in astrophysical literature. We show how the scalability is limited by various constraints imposed by physical processes and initial conditions. Using supernova remnants in different environments and evolutionary phases as application examples, we demonstrate the use of the scaling as a powerful tool to explore the interdependence among relevant parameters, based on a minimum set of simulations. In particular, we devise a scaling scheme that can be used to adaptively generate numerous seed remnants and plant them into 3D hydrodynamic simulations of the supernova-dominated interstellar medium.

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arXiv2009

Type-Ia Supernova-driven Galactic Bulge Wind

Stellar feedback in galactic bulges plays an essential role in shaping the evolution of galaxies. To quantify this role and facilitate comparisons with X-ray observations, we conduct 3D hydrodynamical simulations with the adaptive mesh refinement code, FLASH, to investigate the physical properties of hot gas inside a galactic bulge, similar to that of our Galaxy or M31. We assume that the dynamical and thermal properties of the hot gas are dominated by mechanical energy input from SNe, primarily Type Ia, and mass injection from evolved stars as well as iron enrichment from SNe. We study the bulge-wide outflow as well as the SN heating on scales down to ~4 pc. An embedding scheme that is devised to plant individual SNR seeds, allows to examine, for the first time, the effect of sporadic SNe on the density, temperature, and iron ejecta distribution of the hot gas as well as the resultant X-ray morphology and spectrum. We find that the SNe produce a bulge wind with highly filamentary density structures and patchy ejecta. Compared with a 1D spherical wind model, the non-uniformity of simulated gas density, temperature, and metallicity substantially alters the spectral shape and increases the diffuse X-ray luminosity. The differential emission measure as a function of temperature of the simulated gas exhibits a log-normal distribution, with a peak value much lower than that of the corresponding 1D model. The bulk of the X-ray emission comes from the relatively low temperature and low abundance gas shells associated with SN blastwaves. SN ejecta are not well mixed with the ambient medium, at least in the bulge region. These results, at least partly, account for the apparent lack of evidence for iron enrichment in the soft X-ray-emitting gas in galactic bulges and intermediate-mass elliptical galaxies.[...]

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arXiv2008

Feedback from galactic stellar bulges and hot gaseous haloes of galaxies

We demonstrate that the feedback from stellar bulges can play an essential role in shaping the halo gas of galaxies with substantial bulge components by conducting 1-D hydrodynamical simulations. The feedback model we consider consists of two distinct phases: 1) an early starburst during the bulge formation and 2) a subsequent long-lasting mass and energy injection from stellar winds of low-mass stars and Type Ia SNe. An energetic outward blastwave is initiated by the starburst and is maintained and enhanced by the long-lasting stellar feedback. For a MW-like galactic bulge, this blastwave sweeps up the halo gas in the proto-galaxy and heats up the surrounding medium to a scale much beyond the virial radius of the halo, thus the accretion of the halo hot gas can be completely stopped. In addition, the long-lasting feedback in the later phase powers a galactic bulge wind that is reverse-shocked at a large radius in the presence of surrounding intergalactic medium and hence maintains a hot gaseous halo. As the mass and energy injection decreases with time, the feedback evolves to a subsonic and quasi-stable outflow, which is enough to prevent halo gas from cooling. The two phases of the feedback thus re-enforce each-other's impact on the gas dynamics. The simulation results demonstrate that the stellar bulge feedback may provide a plausible solution to the long-standing problems in understanding the MW type galaxies, such as the "missing stellar feedback" problem and the "over-cooling" problem. The simulations also show that the properties of the hot gas in the subsonic outflow state depend sensitively on the environment and the formation history of the bulge. This dependence and variance may explain the large dispersion in the X-ray to B-band luminosity ratio of the low $L_X/L_B$ Es.

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arXiv2007

Limits on Hot Galactic Halo Gas from X-ray Absorption Lines

Although the existence of large-scale hot gaseous halos around massive disk galaxies have been theorized for a long time, there is yet very little observational evidence. We report the Chandra and XMM-Newton grating spectral detection of OVII and NeIX Kalpha absorption lines along the sight-line of 4U 1957+11. The line absorption is consistent with the interstellar medium in origin. Attributing these line absorptions to the hot gas associated with the Galactic disk, we search for the gaseous halo around the Milky Way by comparing this sight-line with more distant ones (toward X-ray binary LMC X-3 and the AGN Mrk 421). We find that all the line absorptions along the LMC X-3 and Mrk 421 sight-lines are attributable to the hot gas in a thick Galactic disk, as traced by the absorption lines in the spectra of 4U~1957+11 after a Galactic latitude dependent correction. We constrain the OVII column density through the halo to be N(OVII) < 5E15 cm^{-2} (95% confidence limit), and conclude that the hot gas contribution to the metal line absorptions, if existing, is negligible.

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arXiv2007

Chandra View of DA 530: A Sub-Energetic Supernova Remnant with a Pulsar Wind Nebula?

Based on a Chandra ACIS observation, we report the detection of an extended X-ray feature close to the center of the remnant DA 530 with 5.3 sigma above the background within a circle of 20'' radius. This feature, characterized by a power-law with the photon index gamma=1.6+-0.8 and spatially coinciding with a nonthermal radiosource, most likely represents a pulsar wind nebula. We have further examined the spectrum of the diffuse X-ray emission from the remnant interior with a background-subtracted count rate of ~0.06 counts s^-1 in 0.3-3.5 keV. The spectrum of the emission can be described by a thermal plasma with a temperature of ~0.3-0.6 keV and a Si over-abundance of >~7 solar. These spectral characteristics, together with the extremely low X-ray luminosity, suggest that the remnant arises from a supernova with an anomalously low mechanical energy (<10^50 ergs). The centrally-filled thermal X-ray emission of the remnant may indicate an early thermalization of the SN ejecta by the circum-stellar medium. Our results suggest that the remnant is likely the product of a core-collapsed SN with a progenitor mass of 8-12 Msun. Similar remnants are probably common in the Galaxy, but have rarely been studied.

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arXiv2007

The Galactic Central Diffuse X-ray Enhancement: A Differential Absorption/Emission Analysis

The soft X-ray background shows a general enhancement toward the inner region of the Galaxy. But whether this enhancement is a local feature (e.g., a superbubble within a distance of <= 200 pc) and/or a phenomenon related to energetic outflows from the Galactic center/bulge remains unclear. Here we report a comparative X-ray emission and absorption study of diffuse hot gas along the sight lines toward 3C 273 and Mrk 421, on and off the enhancement, but at similar Galactic latitudes. The diffuse 3/4-keV emission intensity, as estimated from the ROSAT All Sky Survey, is about three times higher toward 3C 273 than toward Mrk 421. Based on archival \chandra grating observations of these two AGNs, we detect X-ray absorption lines (e.g., OVII Kalpha, Kbeta, and OVIII Kalpha transitions at z~0) and find that the mean hot gas thermal and kinematic properties along the two sight lines are significantly different. By subtracting the foreground and background contribution, as determined along the Mrk 421 sight line, we isolate the net X-ray absorption and emission produced by the hot gas associated with the enhancement in the direction of 3C 273. From a joint analysis of these differential data sets, we obtain the temperature, dispersion velocity, and hydrogen column density as 2.0(1.6, 2.3)E6 K, 216(104,480) km/s, and 2.2(1.4, 4.1)E19 cm^{-2}, respectively (90% confidence intervals), assuming that the gas is approximately isothermal, solar in metal abundances, and equilibrium in collisional ionization. We also constrain the effective line-of-sight extent of the gas to be 3.4(1.0, 10.1) kpc, strongly suggesting that the enhancement most likely represents a Galactic central phenomenon.

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arXiv2007

X-ray Timing Observations of PSR J1930+1852 in the Crab-like SNR G54.1+0.3

We present new X-ray timing and spectral observations of PSR J1930+1852, the young energetic pulsar at the center of the non-thermal supernova remnant G54.1+0.3. Using data obtained with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer and Chandra X-ray observatories we have derived an updated timing ephemeris of the 136 ms pulsar spanning 6 years. During this interval, however, the period evolution shows significant variability from the best fit constant spin-down rate of $\dot P = 7.5112(6) \times 10^{-13}$ s s$^{-1}$, suggesting strong timing noise and/or glitch activity. The X-ray emission is highly pulsed ($71\pm5%$ modulation) and is characterized by an asymmetric, broad profile ($\sim 70%$ duty cycle) which is nearly twice the radio width. The spectrum of the pulsed emission is well fitted with an absorbed power law of photon index $Γ= 1.2\pm0.2$; this is marginally harder than that of the unpulsed component. The total 2-10 keV flux of the pulsar is $1.7 \times 10^{-12}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. These results confirm PSR J1930+1852 as a typical Crab-like pulsar.

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arXiv2007

Chandra and XMM-Newton Detection of Large-scale Diffuse X-ray Emission from the Sombrero Galaxy

We present an X-ray study of the massive edge-on Sa galaxy, Sombrero (M~104; NGC 4594), based on XMM-Newton and Chandra observations. A list of 62 XMM-Newton and 175 Chandra discrete X-ray sources is provided. At energies above 2 keV, the source-subtracted X-ray emission is distributed similarly as the stellar K-band light and is primarily due to the residual emission from discrete sources. At lower energies, however, a substantial fraction of the source-subtracted emission arises from diffuse hot gas extending to ~20 kpc from the galactic center. The observed diffuse X-ray emission from the galaxy shows a steep spectrum that can be characterized by an optically-thin thermal plasma with temperatures of ~0.6-0.7 keV, varying little with radius. The diffuse emission has a total luminosity of ~3e39 erg/s in the 0.2-2 keV energy range. This luminosity is significantly smaller than the prediction by current numerical simulations for galaxies as massive as Sombrero. We argue that the stellar feedback likely plays an essential role in regulating the physical properties of hot gas. Indeed, the observed diffuse X-ray luminosity of Sombrero accounts for at most a few percent of the expected mechanical energy input from Type Ia supernovae. The inferred gas mass and metal content are also substantially less than those expected from stellar ejecta. We speculate that a galactic bulge wind, powered primarily by Type Ia supernovae, has removed much of the 'missing' energy and metal-enriched gas from regions revealed by the X-ray observations.

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arXiv2006

The Non-isothermality and Extent of Galactic Diffuse Hot Gas Toward Mrk~421

Diffuse hot gas can be traced effectively by its X-ray absorption and emission. We present a joint-analysis of these tracers to characterize the spatial and temperature distributions of the Galactic hot gas along the sight-line toward the nearby bright active galactic nucleus Mrk 421. We also complement this analysis with far-UV OVI absorption observations. We find that the observed absorption line strengths of OVII and OVIII are inconsistent with the diffuse background emission line ratio of the same ions, if the gas is assumed to be isothermal in a collisional ionization equilibrium state. But all these lines as well as the diffuse 3/4-keV broad-band background intensity in the field can be fitted with a plasma with a power law temperature distribution. We show that this distribution can be derived from a hot gaseous disk model with the gas temperature and density decreasing exponentially with the vertical distance from the Galactic plane. The joint fit gives the exponential scale heights as ~1.0 kpc and ~1.6 kpc and the middle plane values as 2.8E6 K and 2.4E-3 cm^{-3} for the temperature and density, respectively. These values are consistent with those inferred from X-ray observations of nearby edge-on galaxies similar to our own.

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arXiv2006

Chandra Detection of Fe XVII in Absorption: Iron Abundance in the Hot Gaseous Interstellar Medium

The iron depletion level and the gas-phase iron abundance in the hot ~10^6 K interstellar medium (ISM) is critical to the understanding of its energy balance as well as the thermal sputtering, cooling, and heating processes of dust grains. Here we report on the first detection of the Fe XVII absorption line at 15.02 A from the hot ISM in the spectrum of the low mass X-ray binary 4U~1820-303 observed with Chandra X-Ray Observatory. By jointly analyzing this absorption line with those from OVII, OVIII, and NeIX ions in the same spectrum, we obtain an abundance ratio as Fe/Ne=0.8(0.4, 2.1) in units of the Anders & Grevesse solar value (90% confidence intervals). We find that the result is robust with respect to different assumed gas temperature distributions. The obtained Fe/Ne abundance ratio, albeit with large uncertainties, is consistent with the solar value, indicating that there is very little or no iron depleted into dust grains, i.e., most of or all of the dust grains have been destroyed in the hot ISM.

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arXiv2006

Hot Gaseous Halos of Nearby Disk Galaxies

I review studies of the hot gaseous medium in and around nearby normal disk galaxies, including the Milky Way. This medium represents a reservoir of materials required for lasting star formation, a depository of galactic feedback (e.g., stellar mass loss and supernovae), and an interface between the interstellar and intergalactic media. Important progress has been made recently with the detection of X-ray absorption lines in the spectra of X-ray binaries and AGNs. The X-ray absorption line spectroscopy, together with existing X-ray emission and far-UV \ovi absorption measurements now allows for the first time to characterize the global spatial, thermal, and chemical properties of hot gas in the Galaxy. The results are generally consistent with those inferred from X-ray imaging of nearby edge-on galaxies similar to the Milky Way. Observed diffuse X-ray emitting/absorbing gas does not extend significantly more than $\sim 10$ kpc away from galactic disks/bulges, except in nuclear starburst or very massive galaxies. The X-ray cooling rate of this gas is generally far less than the expected supernova mechanical energy input alone. So the bulk of the energy is ``missing''. On the other hand, evidence for a large-scale ($\gsim 10^2$ kpc) hot gaseous halo around the Milky Way to explain various high-velocity clouds is mounting. The theoretical argument for ongoing accretion of intergalactic gas onto disk galaxies is also compelling. I discuss possible solutions that reconcile these facts.

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