Hot X-ray coronae around massive spiral galaxies: A unique probe of structure formation models

Abstract

Luminous X-ray gas coronae in the dark matter halos of massive spiral galaxies are a fundamental prediction of structure formation models, yet only a few such coronae have been detected so far. In this paper, we study the hot X-ray coronae beyond the optical disks of two "normal" massive spirals, NGC 1961 and NGC 6753. Based on XMM-Newton X-ray observations, hot gaseous emission is detected to ∼60 kpc - well beyond their optical radii. The hot gas has a best-fit temperature of kT ∼ 0.6 keV and an abundance of ∼0.1 Solar, and exhibits a fairly uniform distribution, suggesting that the quasi-static gas resides in hydrostatic equilibrium in the potential well of the galaxies. The bolometric luminosity of the gas in the (0.05-0.15)r 200 region (r200 is the virial radius) is ∼6 × 1040 erg s-1 for both galaxies. The baryon mass fractions of NGC 1961 and NGC 6753 are fb, NGC 1961 ∼ 0.11 and f b, NGC 6753 ∼ 0.09, which values fall short of the cosmic baryon fraction. The hot coronae around NGC 1961 and NGC 6753 offer an excellent basis to probe structure formation simulations. To this end, the observations are confronted with the moving mesh code AREPO and the smoothed particle hydrodynamics code GADGET. Although neither model gives a perfect description, the observed luminosities, gas masses, and abundances favor the AREPO code. Moreover, the shape and the normalization of the observed density profiles are better reproduced by AREPO within ∼0.5r200. However, neither model incorporates efficient feedback from supermassive black holes or supernovae, which could alter the simulated properties of the X-ray coronae. With the further advance of numerical models, the present observations will be essential in constraining the feedback effects in structure formation simulations. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.