Revisiting the Low Metallicity Problem of the Hot ISM in X-ray Faint Early-type Galaxies

Details Revisiting the Low Metallicity Problem of the Hot ISM in X-ray Faint Early-type Galaxies Revisiting the Low Metallicity Problem of the Hot ISM in X-ray Faint Early-type Galaxies

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...209.0414i&link_type=abstract

2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 209, #04.14; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, V

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

The metallicity of the hot interstellar medium (ISM) of early-type galaxies has been vigorously debated over the years, but recent studies by XMM-Newton and Chandra seem to be converging on a metallicity value consistent with solar, at least for X-ray bright ellipticals and S0s. This is expected, since the source of much of the hot ISM is mass loss from stars with optically-measured metallicities of approximately solar. However, very low hot gas metallicities (<10% solar) have been reported in X-ray faint ellipticals and S0 galaxies. We investigate this discrepancy by analyzing the joint Chandra + XMM-Newton (174 ksec + 41 ksec) spectrum of the X-ray faint elliptical galaxy NGC4697. The long exposure time affords us enough counts to untie individual elements (O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ni) from Fe, something that was not possible in previous studies because of low X-ray count rates. We find that although the extremely low metallicities (<10% solar) reported previously are ruled out, O, Ne, Mg, and Fe are still substantially sub-solar ( 25% solar). We discuss possible mechanisms by which the metal content of the hot gas has been diluted.

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