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Register a new userROSAT X-ray observations of the dwarf galaxy Holmberg II
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We present a study of the irregular dwarf galaxy Holmberg II based on ROSAT PSPC observations (total exposure time: 22 ksec). Holmberg II is a nearby (3.2 Mpc), well-studied dwarf irregular galaxy. It is famous for its interstellar medium which is dominated by expanding structures such as HI holes and shells. We search for X-ray emission from point sources as well as for diffuse emission, down to the detection limit of the ROSAT data. Using X-ray hardness ratio diagrams we differentiate between thermal plasma and power-law X-ray spectra which helps to determine the nature of the individual sources. Correlating the X-ray data with complementary observations ranging from the far-ultraviolet to the radio regime we increase the probability of correctly identifying sources belonging to Holmberg II. We did not detect soft X-ray emission originating from hot gas within supergiant HI shells above our luminosity sensitivity limit of (L_limit(0.1 - 2.1 keV) ~ 10^{37}erg/s). This finding can probably be attributed to blow-out in the case of the largest holes and insufficient sensitivity (due to strong photoelectric absorption) in case of the smaller HI holes. However we find faint X-ray sources well beyond the stellar body but within the HI distribution of Holmberg II, which suggests the presence of X-ray binaries. This indicates that star formation has taken place across the entire gaseous disk of Holmberg II in the past, some of which may have created the structures seen in the ISM at large galactocentric radii.
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We present ROSAT PSPC and HRI observations of the dwarf irregular galaxy Holmberg II (UGC4305). This is one of the most luminous dwarf galaxies (Lx~ 10^{40} erg s^{-1} cm^{-2}) detected in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey. The X-ray emission comes from a single unresolved point source, coincident with a large HII region which emits intense radio emission. The source is variable on both year and day timescales, clearly favouring accretion into a compact object rather than a supernova remnant or a superbubble interpretation for the origin of the X-ray emission. However, its X-ray spectrum is well-fit by a a Raymond-Smith spectrum with kT~0.8 keV, lower than the temperature of X-ray binaries in nearby spiral galaxies.
A detailed photometric study of star-forming regions (SFRs) in the galaxy Holmberg II has been carried out using archival observational data from the far infrared to ultraviolet obtained with the GALEX, Spitzer, and Herschel telescopes. Spectroscopic observations with the 6-m telescope of Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences are used to estimate ages and metallicities of SFRs. For the first time, the ages of SFRs have been related to their emission parameters in a wide spectral range and with the physical parameters determined by fitting the observed spectra. It is shown that fluxes at 8 and 24 micron characterizing the emission of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and hot dust grains decrease with age, but their ratio increases. This implies that the relative PAH contribution to the total infrared flux increases with age. It is suggested that the detected increase in the ratio of the fluxes at 8 and 24 micron is related to the growth in the PAH mass due to destruction of larger grains.
The nearly face-on SBc galaxy M83 (NGC 5236) was observed for 25 ksec with the ROSAT PSPC. We detected 13 point-like sources in this galaxy, 10 of which were previously unknown. We measured extended X-ray radiation from almost the whole optically visible galaxy. Comparing the diffuse soft and hard X-ray emission components, we observed a different asymmetric distribution and a slower radial decrease of the intensity profile of the soft X-ray emission. Both these results support the existence of a huge spherical gas halo of 10-15 kpc radius. On the other hand, the radial scale lengths of the hard X-ray radiation, that of the thermal radio emission and the profile of the optical surface brightness are similar, favouring the idea that all these emission processes are connected to star formation in the galaxys disk. M83 is the first face-on galaxy where the diffuse X-ray emission spectrum can be characterized by a two-temperature thermal plasma: a soft X-ray emitting warm `halo component and an internally absorbed hot `disk component which is dominating the emission in the hard (0.5-2.0 keV) ROSAT energy range. The combination of X-ray and radio polarization observations allows an estimate of the plasma parameter beta = U_therm/U_magn which is found to be 0.2+/-0.1. This result supports the hypothesis that magnetic fields play an important role for the evolution and structure of galactic gas haloes. The high energy input rate in the active star-forming disk of M83 seems to be responsible for the outflow of hot gas and the halo formation.
We present the first broadband 0.3-25.0 kev X-ray observations of the bright ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) Holmberg II X-1, performed by NuSTAR, XMM-Newton and Suzaku in September 2013. The NuSTAR data provide the first observations of Holmberg II X-1 above 10 keV, and reveal a very steep high-energy spectrum, similar to other ULXs observed by NuSTAR to date. These observations further demonstrate that ULXs exhibit spectral states that are not typically seen in Galactic black hole binaries. Comparison with other sources implies that Holmberg II X-1 accretes at a high fraction of its Eddington accretion rate, and possibly exceeds it. The soft X-ray spectrum (E<10 keV) appears to be dominated by two blackbody-like emission components, the hotter of which may be associated with an accretion disk. However, all simple disk models under-predict the NuSTAR data above ~10 keV and require an additional emission component at the highest energies probed, implying the NuSTAR data does not fall away with a Wien spectrum. We investigate physical origins for such an additional high-energy emission component, and favor a scenario in which the excess arises from Compton scattering in a hot corona of electrons with some properties similar to the very-high state seen in Galactic binaries. The observed broadband 0.3-25.0 keV luminosity inferred from these epochs is Lx = (8.1+/-0.1)e39 erg/s, typical for Holmberg II X-1, with the majority of the flux (~90%) emitted below 10 keV.
The mass function of galaxy clusters is a sensitive tracer of the gravitational evolution of the cosmic large-scale structure and serves as an important census of the fraction of matter bound in large structures. We obtain the mass function by fitting the observed cluster X-ray luminosity distribution from the REFLEX galaxy cluster survey to models of cosmological structure formation. We marginalise over uncertainties in the cosmological parameters as well as those of the relevant galaxy cluster scaling relations. The mass function is determined with an uncertainty less than 10% in the mass range 3 x 10^12 to 5 x 10^14 M$_odot$. For the cumulative mass function we find a slope at the low mass end consistent with a value of -1, while the mass rich end cut-off is milder than a Schechter function with an exponential term exp($- M^delta$) with $delta$ smaller than 1. Changing the Hubble parameter in the range $H_0 = 67 - 73 km s^-1 Mpc^{-1}$ or allowing the total neutrino mass to have a value between 0 - 0.4 eV causes variations less than the uncertainties. We estimate the fraction of mass locked up in galaxy clusters: about 4.4% of the matter in the Universe is bound in clusters (inside $r_200$) with a mass larger than 10^14 M$_odot$ and 14% to clusters and groups with a mass larger than 10^13 M$_odot$ at the present Universe. We also discuss the evolution of the galaxy cluster population with redshift. Our results imply that there is hardly any clusters with a mass > 10^15 M$_odot$ above a redshift of z = 1.
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