Hot Gaseous Halos in Early Type Galaxies

Abstract

The hot gas in early type galaxies (ETGs) plays a crucial role in their formation and evolution. As the hot gas is often extended to the outskirts beyond the optical size, the large scale structural features identified by Chandra (including cavities, cold fronts, filaments, and tails) point to key evolutionary mechanisms, e.g., AGN feedback, merging history, accretion/stripping, as well as star formation and quenching. We systematically analyze the archival Chandra data of ETGs to study the hot ISM. Using uniformly derived data products with spatially resolved spectral information, we revisit the X-ray scaling relations of ETGs and address their implications by comparing them with those of groups/clusters and simulations.

Keywords

• galaxies: elliptical and lenticular
• cD–X-rays: galaxies