Elliptical galaxies comprise primarily old stars, which collectively generate a long-lasting feedback via stellar mass-loss and Type Ia SNe. This feedback can be traced by X-ray-emitting hot gas in and around such galaxies, in which little cool gas is typically present. However, the X-ray-inferred mass, energy, and metal abundance of the hot gas are often found to be far less than what are expected from the feedback, particularly in so-called low L_X/L_B ellipticals. This "missing" stellar feedback is presumably lost in galaxy-wide outflows, which can play an essential role in galaxy evolution (e.g., explaining the observed color bi-modality of galaxies). We are developing a model that can be used to properly interpret the X-ray data and to extract key information about the dynamics of the feedback and its interplay with galactic environment.
Elliptical galaxies have dynamically hot ($σ_{1D}$ ~ 100 -- 300 km s$^{-1}$) populations of stars, and presumably, smaller objects like comets. Because interstellar minor bodies are moving much faster, they hit planets harder and more often than in the local Galaxy. I estimate the rates for Chicxulub-scale impacts on an Earth-size planet in elliptical galaxies as a potential habitability constraint on intelligent life. Around most stars in a normal elliptical galaxy, these planets receive only ~0.01 -- 0.1 Gyr$^{-1}$, although hazardous rates may be common in certain compact early-type galaxie…
The relationship between warm and hot gas-phase metallicity in massive elliptical galaxies and the influence of AGN feedback
Universidad de Santiago de Chile（圣地亚哥智利大学）；University of Kentucky（肯塔基大学）；NASA-Ames Research Center（美国国家航空航天局艾姆斯研究中心）；University of Nottingham（诺丁汉大学）；University of Modena & Reggio Emilia（摩德纳与雷焦艾米利亚大学）；Observatoire de Paris（巴黎天文台）；Collége de France（法兰西学院）；PSL University（巴黎文理研究大学）；Sorbonne University（索邦大学）；University of Alabama in Huntsville（阿拉巴马大学亨茨维尔分校）；Universidad de Tarapacá（塔拉帕卡大学）
Energy deposited by black holes in the hot X-ray gas of elliptical galaxies, groups and clusters
Observatoire de Paris, LUX, PSL University（巴黎天文台，LUX，巴黎文理研究大学）；INAF, Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio（意大利国家天体物理研究所，空间天体物理与天体物理学观测站）；INFN, Sezione di Bologna（意大利国家核物理研究所，博洛尼部分部）
We add a suite of chemical abundances to the MACER (Massive AGN Controlled Ellipticals Resolved) 2D code, by solving 12 additional continuity equations for H, He, C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ca, Fe and Ni respectively with sources from AGB stars and supernovae of type Ia and II with metal yields based on standard stellar physics. New stars, formed in Toomre unstable circumnuclear disks (of a size $\lesssim150$ parsec), are assumed to have a top-heavy initial mass function with a power index of 1.65. The metal dilution effects due to cosmic accretion are also included. With the high resolution of f…
Isolated massive elliptical galaxies, or that are present at the center of cool-core clusters, are believed to be powered by hot gas accretion directly from their surrounding hot X-ray emitting gaseous medium. This leads to a giant Bondi-type spherical/quasi-spherical accretion flow onto their host SMBHs, with the accretion flow region extending well beyond the Bondi radius. In this work, we present a detailed study of Bondi-type spherical flow in the context of these massive ellipticals by incorporating the effect of entire gravitational potential of the host galaxy in the presence of cosmolo…
Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) winds from evolved stars not only provide a non-trivial amount of mass and energy return, but also produce dust grains in massive elliptical galaxies. Due to the fast stellar velocity and the high ambient temperature, the wind is thought to form a comet-like tail, similar to Mira in the Local Bubble. Many massive elliptical galaxies and cluster central galaxies host extended dusty cold filaments. The fate of the cold dusty stellar wind and its relation to cold filaments are not well understood. In this work, we carry out both analytical and numerical studies of th…
We present a robust representation of the chemical and thermal structure in the galaxy group NGC 5813 using archival, deep X-ray observations, and employing a multi-temperature spectral model based on up to date atomic line emission databases. The selection of our target is motivated by the fact that NGC 5813 has a very relaxed morphology, making it a promising candidate for the study of the AGN feedback's influence in the intra-group medium (IGrM). Our results showcase a prominent, extended distribution of cool gas along the group's NE-SW direction, correlating with the direction along which …
AGN Feedback and the Development of Dusty Multiphase Gas in X-ray Emitting Elliptical Galaxies
NASA - Ames Research Center（美国国家航空航天局艾姆斯研究中心）；Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Universita‘ di Bologna（博洛尼亚大学物理与天文学系）；Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica - Istituto di Radioastronomia (IRA)（意大利国家天体物理学研究所无线电天文研究所）；University of California Observatories/Lick Observatory（加州大学观测站/利克天文台）；Bay Area Environmental Research Institute（湾区环境研究所）；Departamento de Física, Universidad de Santiago de Chile（智利圣地亚哥大学物理系）；Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Astrophysics and Space Exploration (CIRAS), Universidad de Santiago de Chile（智利圣地亚哥大学天体物理学与空间探索跨学科研究中心）；NASA Ames Research Center - Aviation Systems Division（美国国家航空航天局艾姆斯研究中心航空系统分部）；Crown Consulting, Inc（皇冠咨询公司）；Department of Physics, Informatics and Mathematics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia（摩德纳和雷焦艾米利亚大学物理、信息学与数学系）
Hot atmospheres pervading galaxy clusters, groups, and early-type galaxies are rich in metals, produced during epochs and diffused via processes that are still to be determined. While this enrichment has been routinely investigated in clusters, metals in lower mass systems are more challenging to probe with standard X-ray exposures and spectroscopy. In this paper, we focus on very deep XMM-Newton ($\sim$350 ks) observations of NGC 1404, a massive elliptical galaxy experiencing ram-pressure stripping of its hot atmosphere while infalling toward the centre of the Fornax cluster, with the aim to …
We present high-resolution, three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of the fueling of supermassive black holes in elliptical galaxies from a turbulent medium on galactic scales, taking M87* as a typical case. The simulations use a new GPU-accelerated version of the Athena++ AMR code, and span more than 6 orders of magnitude in radius, reaching scales similar to the black hole horizon. The key physical ingredients are radiative cooling and a phenomenological heating model. We find that the accretion flow takes the form of multiphase gas at radii less than about a kpc. The cold gas accretion …
Super-massive black holes (SMBHs) spend most of their lifetime accreting at a rate well below the Eddington limit, manifesting themselves as low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs). The prevalence of a hot wind from LLAGNs is a generic prediction by theories and numerical simulations of black hole accretion and is recently becoming a crucial ingredient of AGN kinetic feedback in cosmological simulations of galaxy evolution. However, direct observational evidence for this hot wind is still scarce. In this work, we identify significant Fe XXVI Ly$α$ and Fe XXV K$α$ emission lines from hig…
We present a study of the relationship between black hole accretion rate (BHAR) and star formation rate (SFR) in a sample of giant elliptical galaxies. These galaxies, which live at the centers of galaxy groups and clusters, have star formation and black hole activity that is primarily fueled by gas condensing out of the hot intracluster medium. For a sample of 46 galaxies spanning 5 orders of magnitude in BHAR and SFR, we find a mean ratio of log(BHAR/SFR) = -1.45 +/- 0.2, independent of the methodology used to constrain both SFR and BHAR. This ratio is significantly higher than most previous…
