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Two giant plasma lobes, known as the Fermi Bubbles, extend 10 kpc above and below the Galactic Center. Since their discovery in X-rays in 2003 (and in gamma-rays in 2010), the Bubbles have been recognized as a new morphological feature of our Galaxy and a striking example of energetic feedback from the nuclear region. They remain the subject of intense research and their origin via AGN activity or nuclear star formation is still debated. While imaging at gamma-ray, X-ray, microwave, and radio wavelengths has revealed their morphology and energetics, spectroscopy at radio and UV wavelengths has recently been used to study the kinematics and chemical abundances of outflowing gas clouds embedded in the Bubbles (the nuclear wind). Here we identify the scientific themes that have emerged from the spectroscopic studies, determine key open questions, and describe further observations needed in the next ten years to characterize the basic physical conditions in the nuclear wind and its impact on the rest of the Galaxy. Nuclear winds are ubiquitous in galaxies, and the Galactic Center represents the best opportunity to study the constitution and structure of a nuclear wind in close detail.
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Giant lobes of plasma extend 55 degrees above and below the Galactic Center, glowing in emission from gamma rays (the Fermi Bubbles) to microwaves (the WMAP haze) and polarized radio waves. We use ultraviolet absorption-line spectra from the Hubble Space Telescope to constrain the velocity of the outflowing gas within these regions, targeting the quasar PDS 456 (Galactic coordinates l,b=10.4, +11.2 degrees). This sightline passes through a clear biconical structure seen in hard X-ray and gamma-ray emission near the base of the northern Fermi Bubble. We report two high-velocity metal absorption components, at v_LSR=-235 and +250 km/s, which cannot be explained by co-rotating gas in the Galactic disk or halo. Their velocities are suggestive of an origin on the front and back side of an expanding biconical outflow emanating from the Galactic Center. We develop simple kinematic biconical outflow models that can explain these observed profiles with an outflow velocity of ~900 km/s and a full opening angle of ~110 degrees (matching the X-ray bicone). This indicates Galactic Center activity over the last ~2.5-4.0 Myr, in line with age estimates of the Fermi Bubbles. The observations illustrate the use of UV absorption-line spectroscopy to probe the properties of swept-up gas venting into the Fermi Bubbles.
We present Suzaku X-ray observations along two edge regions of the Fermi Bubbles, with eight ~20 ksec pointings across the northern part of the North Polar Spur (NPS) surrounding the north bubble and six across the southernmost edge of the south bubble. After removing compact X-ray features, diffuse X-ray emission is clearly detected and is well reproduced by a three-component spectral model consisting of unabsorbed thermal emission (temperature kT ~0.1 keV from the Local Bubble (LB), absorbed kT ~0.3 keV thermal emission related to the NPS and/or Galactic Halo (GH), and a power-law component at a level consistent with the cosmic X-ray background. The emission measure (EM) of the 0.3 keV plasma decreases by ~50% toward the inner regions of the north-east bubble, with no accompanying temperature change. However, such a jump in the EM is not clearly seen in the south bubble data. While it is unclear if the NPS originates from a nearby supernova remnant or is related to previous activity within/around the Galactic Center, our Suzaku observations provide evidence suggestive of the latter scenario. In the latter framework, the presence of a large amount of neutral matter absorbing the X-ray emission as well as the existence of the kT ~ 0.3 keV gas can be naturally interpreted as a weak shock driven by the bubbles expansion in the surrounding medium, with velocity v_exp ~300 km/s (corresponding to shock Mach number M ~1.5), compressing the GH gas to form the NPS feature. We also derived an upper limit for any non-thermal X-ray emission component associated with the bubbles and demonstrate, that in agreement with the findings above, the non-thermal pressure and energy estimated from a one-zone leptonic model of its broad-band spectrum, are in rough equilibrium with that of the surrounding thermal plasma.
There are two spectacular structures in our Milky Way: the {it Fermi} bubbles in gamma-ray observations and the North Polar Spur (NPS) structure in X-ray observations. Because of their morphological similarities, they may share the same origin, i.e., related to the past activity of Galactic center (GC). Besides, those structures show significant bending feature toward the west in Galactic coordinates. This inspires us to consider the possibility that the bending may be caused by a presumed global horizontal galactic wind (HGW) blowing from the east to the west. Under this assumption, we adopt a toy shock expansion model to understand two observational features: (1) the relative thickness of the NPS; (2) the bending of the {it Fermi} bubbles and NPS. In this model, the contact discontinuity (CD) marks the boundary of the {it Fermi} bubbles, and the shocked interstellar medium (ISM) marks the NPS X-ray structure. We find that the Mach number of the forward shock in the east is $sim$ 1.9-2.3, and the velocity of the HGW is ~ 0.7-0.9 $c_{s}$. Depending on the temperature of the pre-shock ISM, the velocity of the expanding NPS in Galactic coordinates is around 180-290 km/s, and the HGW is ~ 110-190 km/s. We argue that, the age of the NPS and the {it Fermi} bubbles is about 18-34 Myr. This is a novel method, independent of injection theories and radiative mechanisms, for the estimation on the age of the {it Fermi} bubble/NPS.
The Fermi Bubbles, which comprise two large and homogeneous regions of spectrally hard gamma-ray emission extending up to $55^{o}$ above and below the Galactic Center, were first noticed in GeV gamma-ray data from the Fermi Telescope in 2010. The mechanism or mechanisms which produce the observed hard spectrum are not understood. Although both hadronic and lep- tonic models can describe the spectrum of the bubbles, the leptonic model can also explain similar structures observed in microwave data from the WMAP and Planck satellites. Recent publications show that the spectrum of the Fermi Bubbles is well described by a power law with an exponential cutoff in the energy range of 100MeV to 500GeV. Observing the Fermi Bubbles at higher gamma-ray energies will help constrain the origin of the bubbles. A steeper cutoff will favor a leptonic model. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory, located 4100m above sea level in Mexico, is designed to measure high-energy gamma rays between 100GeV to 100TeV. With a large field of view and good sensitivity to spatially extended sources, HAWC is the best observatory suited to look for extended regions like the Fermi Bubbles at TeV energies. We will present results from a preliminary analysis of the Fermi Bubble visible to HAWC in the Galactic Northern Hemisphere during the ICRC conference.
Fermi LAT has discovered two extended gamma-ray bubbles above and below the galactic plane. We propose that their origin is due to the energy release in the Galactic center (GC) as a result of quasi-periodic star accretion onto the central black hole. Shocks generated by these processes propagate into the Galactic halo and accelerate particles there. We show that electrons accelerated up to ~10 TeV may be responsible for the observed gamma-ray emission of the bubbles as a result of inverse Compton (IC) scattering on the relic photons. We also suggest that the Bubble could generate the flux of CR protons at energies > 10^15 eV because the shocks in the Bubble have much larger length scales and longer lifetimes in comparison with those in SNRs. This may explain the the CR spectrum above the knee.
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