Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2005-06-27
Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.362:581-591,2005
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
12 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
Scientific paper
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09336.x
We present XMM-Newton observations of NCG891, a nearby edge-on spiral galaxy. We analyse the extent of the diffuse emission emitted from the disk of the galaxy, and find that it has a single temperature profile with best fitting temperature of 0.26 keV, though the fit of a dual-temperature plasma with temperatures of 0.08 and 0.30 keV is also an acceptable fit. There is a considerable amount of diffuse X-ray emission protruding from the disk in the NW direction out to approximately 6 kpc. We analyse the point source population using a Chandra observation, using a maximum likelihood method to find that the slope of the cumulative luminosity function of point sources in the galaxy is -0.77^{+0.13}_{-0.1}. Using a sample of other local galaxies, we compare the X-ray and infrared properties of NGC891 with those of 'normal' and starburst spiral galaxies, and conclude that NGC891 is most likely a starburst galaxy in a quiescent state. We establish that the diffuse X-ray luminosity of spirals scales with the far infra-red luminosity as L_X \propto L_FIR ^{0.87 +- 0.07}, except for extreme starbursts, and NGC891 does not fall in the latter category. We study the supernova SN1986J in both XMM-Newton and Chandra observations, and find that the X-ray luminosity has been declining with time more steeply than expected (L_X \propto t^-3).
Raychaudhury Somak
Stevens Ian
Temple Rowan
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