No Arabic abstract
The past decade has seen a large progress in the X-ray investigation of early-type galaxies of the local universe, and first attempts have been made to reach redshifts z>0 for these objects, thanks to the high angular resolution and sensitivity of the satellites Chandra and XMM-Newton. Major advances have been obtained in our knowledge of the three separate contributors to the X-ray emission, that are the stellar sources, the hot gas and the galactic nucleus. Here a brief outline of the main results is presented, pointing out the questions that remain open, and finally discussing the prospects to solve them with a wide area X-ray survey mission such as WFXT.
X-ray luminosity, temperature, gas mass, total mass, and their scaling relations are derived for 94 early-type galaxies using archival $Chandra$ X-ray Observatory observations. Consistent with earlier studies, the scaling relations, $L_X propto T^{4.5pm0.2}$, $M propto T^{2.4pm0.2}$, and $L_X propto M^{2.8pm0.3}$, are significantly steeper than expected from self similarity. This steepening indicates that their atmospheres are heated above the level expected from gravitational infall alone. Energetic feedback from nuclear black holes and supernova explosions are likely heating agents. The tight $L_X - T$ correlation for low-luminosities systems (i.e., below 10$^{40}$ erg/s) are at variance with hydrodynamical simulations which generally predict higher temperatures for low luminosity galaxies. We also investigate the relationship between total mass and pressure, $Y_X = M_g times T$, finding $M propto Y_{X}^{0.45pm0.04}$. We explore the gas mass to total mass fraction in early-type galaxies and find a range of $0.1-1.0%$. We find no correlation between the gas-to-total mass fraction with temperature or total mass. Higher stellar velocity dispersions and higher metallicities are found in hotter, brighter, and more massive atmospheres. X-ray core radii derived from $beta$-model fitting are used to characterize the degree of core and cuspiness of hot atmospheres.
Nuclear hard X-ray luminosities (Lx,nuc) for a sample of 112 early type galaxies within a distance of 67 Mpc are used to investigate their relationship with the central galactic black hole mass Mbh, the inner galactic structure (using the parameters describing its cuspiness), the age of the stellar population in the central galactic region, the hot gas content and the core radio luminosity. Lx,nuc ranges from 10^{38} to 10^{42} erg/s, and the Eddington ratio Lx,nuc/Ledd from 10^{-9} to 10^{-4}. Lx,nuc increases on average with the galactic luminosity Lb and Mbh, with a wide variation by up to 4 orders of magnitude at any fixed Lb>6x10^9 Lb,sun or Mbh>10^7 Msun. This large range should reflect a large variation of the mass accretion rate dotMbh. On the circumnuclear scale, dotMbh at fixed Lb (or Mbh) could vary due to differences in the fuel production rate from the stellar mass return linked to the inner galactic structure; however, dotMbh should vary with cuspiness by a factor exceeding a few only in hot gas poor galaxies and for large differences in the core radius. Lx,nuc does not depend on age, but less luminous nuclei are found among galaxies with a younger stellar component. Lx,nuc is detected both in gas poor and gas rich galaxies, on average increases with the total galactic hot gas cooling rate L_{X,ISM}, but again with a large variation. The lack of a tight relationship between Lx,nuc and the circumnuclear and total gas content can be explained if the gas is heated by black hole feedback, and/or the mass effectively accreted can be largely reduced with respect to that entering the circumnuclear region. Differently from Lx,nuc, the 5 GHz VLA luminosity shows a trend with the inner galactic structure similar to that of the total soft X-ray emission; therefore they could both be produced by the hot gas.
High resolution 2D hydrodynamical simulations describing the evolution of the hot ISM in axisymmetric two-component models of early-type galaxies well reproduced the observed trends of the X-ray luminosity ($L_mathrm{x}$) and temperature ($T_mathrm{x}$) with galaxy shape and rotation, however they also revealed the formation of an exceedingly massive cooled gas disc in rotating systems. In a follow-up of this study, here we investigate the effects of star formation in the disc, including the consequent injection of mass, momentum and energy in the pre-existing interstellar medium. It is found that subsequent generations of stars originate one after the other in the equatorial region; the mean age of the new stars is $> 5$ Gyr, and the adopted recipe for star formation can reproduce the empirical Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. The results of the previous investigation without star formation, concerning $L_mathrm{x}$ and $T_mathrm{x}$ of the hot gas, and their trends with galactic shape and rotation, are confirmed. At the same time, the consumption of most of the cold gas disc into new stars leads to more realistic final systems, whose cold gas mass and star formation rate agree well with those observed in the local universe. In particular, our models could explain the observation of kinematically aligned gas in massive, fast-rotating early-type galaxies.
ALMA observations have revealed that [CII] 158$mu$m line emission in high-z galaxies is ~2-3$times$ more extended than the UV continuum emission. Here we explore whether surface brightness dimming (SBD) of the [CII] line is responsible for the reported [CII] deficit, and the large $L_{rm [OIII]}/L_{rm [CII]}$ luminosity ratio measured in early galaxies. We first analyse archival ALMA images of nine z>6 galaxies observed in both [CII] and [OIII]. After performing several uv-tapering experiments to optimize the identification of extended line emission, we detect [CII] emission in the whole sample, with an extent systematically larger than the [CII] emission. Next, we use interferometric simulations to study the effect of SBD on the line luminosity estimate. About 40% of the extended [CII] component might be missed at an angular resolution of 0.8$^{primeprime}$, implying that $L_{rm [CII]}$ is underestimated by a factor $approx2$ in data at low (<7) signal-to-noise ratio . By combining these results, we conclude that $L_{rm [CII]}$ of z>6 galaxies lies, on average, slightly below the local $L_{rm [CII]}-SFR$ relation ($Delta^{z=6-9}=-0.07pm0.3$), but within the intrinsic dispersion of the relation. SBD correction also yields $L_{rm [OIII]}/L_{rm [CII]}<10$, i.e. more in line with current hydrodynamical simulations.
We study the interaction of early-type stars with the jets of active galactic nuclei. A bow-shock will form as a consequence of the interaction of the jet with the winds of stars and particles can be accelerated up to relativistic energies in these shocks. We compute the non-thermal radiation produced by relativistic electrons from radio to gamma-rays. This radiation may be significant, and its detection might yield information on the properties of the stellar population in the galaxy nucleus, as well as on the relativistic jet. This emission is expected to be relevant for nearby non-blazar sources.