The Chandra Carina Complex Project: Deciphering the Enigma of Carina's Diffuse X-ray Emission

Leisa K. Townsley , Patrick S. Broos , You-Hua Chu , Marc Gagné , Gordon P. Garmire , Robert A. Gruendl , Kenji Hamaguchi , Mordecai-Mark Mac Low , Thierry Montmerle (1) , Yaël Nazé , M. S. Oey , Sangwook Park , Robert Petre , Julian M. Pittard

1 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris

We present a 1.42 deg² mosaic of diffuse X-ray emission in the Great Nebula in Carina from the Chandra X-ray Observatory Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer camera. After removing >14,000 X-ray point sources from the field, we smooth the remaining unresolved emission, tessellate it into segments of similar apparent surface brightness, and perform X-ray spectral fitting on those tessellates to infer the intrinsic properties of the X-ray-emitting plasma. By modeling faint resolved point sources, we estimate the contribution to the extended X-ray emission from unresolved point sources and show that the vast majority of Carina's unresolved X-ray emission is truly diffuse. Line-like correlated residuals in the X-ray spectral fits suggest that substantial X-ray emission is generated by charge exchange at the interfaces between Carina's hot, rarefied plasma and its many cold neutral pillars, ridges, and clumps.

Mots clés: H II regions; stars: massive; stars: winds; outflows; X-rays: individual: Carina; X-rays: ISM; X-rays: stars; Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics; Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]

Leisa K. Townsley, Patrick S. Broos, You-Hua Chu, Marc Gagné, Gordon P. Garmire, et al.. The Chandra Carina Complex Project: Deciphering the Enigma of Carina's Diffuse X-ray Emission. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement, 2011, 194, ⟨10.1088/0067-0049/194/1/15⟩. ⟨insu-03645989⟩