RESOLVING THE BONDI ACCRETION FLOW TOWARD THE SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE OF NGC 3115 WITH
                    <i>CHANDRA</i>

Wong, Ka-Wah; Irwin, Jimmy A.; Yukita, Mihoko; Million, Evan T.; Mathews, William G.; Bregman, Joel N.

doi:10.1088/2041-8205/736/1/l23

Cited by 68 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…It has proven difficult to distinguish between these possibilities, or indeed to determine the fuelling mechanism of the AGN, because it is only possible to resolve the hot gas inside the Bondi radius in a handful of systems. Deep Chandra observations of two of the best targets, Sgr A * and NGC3115 (Baganoff et al 2003;Wong et al 2011), are consistent with flat density profiles with ρ∝r −1 inside the Bondi radius (Wang et al 2013;Wong et al 2014). This is consistent with recent numerical simulations which show outflows in the form of winds off the accretion flow preventing all but a fraction of the Bondi rate from reaching the SMBH (eg.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Inside the Bondi radius of M87

Russell

Fabian

McNamara

et al. 2015

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

138

160

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Chandra X-ray observations of the nearby brightest cluster galaxy M87 resolve the hot gas structure across the Bondi accretion radius of the central supermassive black hole, a measurement possible in only a handful of systems but complicated by the bright nucleus and jet emission. By stacking only short frame-time observations to limit pileup, and after subtracting the nuclear PSF, we analysed the X-ray gas properties within the Bondi radius at 0.12 − 0.22 kpc (1.5 − 2.8 arcsec), depending on the black hole mass. Within 2 kpc radius, we detect two significant temperature components, which are consistent with constant values of 2 keV and 0.9 keV down to 0.15 kpc radius. No evidence was found for the expected temperature increase within ∼ 0.25 kpc due to the influence of the SMBH. Within the Bondi radius, the density profile is consistent with ρ∝r −1 . The lack of a temperature increase inside the Bondi radius suggests that the hot gas structure is not dictated by the SMBH's potential and, together with the shallow density profile, shows that the classical Bondi rate may not reflect the accretion rate onto the SMBH. If this density profile extends in towards the SMBH, the mass accretion rate onto the SMBH could be at least two orders of magnitude less than the Bondi rate, which agrees with Faraday rotation measurements for M87. We discuss the evidence for outflow from the hot gas and the cold gas disk and for cold feedback, where gas cooling rapidly from the hot atmosphere could feed the cirumnuclear disk and fuel the SMBH. At 0.2 kpc radius, the cooler X-ray temperature component represents ∼ 20% of the total Xray gas mass and, by losing angular momentum to the hot gas component, could provide a fuel source of cold clouds within the Bondi radius.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Inside the Bondi radius of M87

Russell

Fabian

McNamara

et al. 2015

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

138

160

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“…It reaches χ 2 /dof = 1.001 for dof = 236 and has an accretion rateṀ ≈ 2 × 10 −4 M yr −1 . This accretion rate is a factor of 100 lower than Bondi accretion rate (Wong et al 2011). However, the correspondent accretion powerṀc 2 ∼ 10 43 erg s −1 is still about 7.5 orders of magnitude larger than the observed jet radio power.…”

Section: Solutions With Conductionmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…As the gas temperature closely follows the virial temperature, the change in the virial temperature profile influences the density profile. The density profile n ∝ r −1 is commonly observed in the hot flows outside of the Bondi radius (Allen et al 2006;Wong et al 2011), where the galactic gravitational potential matters.…”

Section: What Does the Density Slope Mean?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous source modeling relied on earlier Chandra observations with 150 ks total exposure (Wong et al 2011). New observations with a combined exposure 1 Ms were performed in 2012 within Chandra XVP.…”

Section: Fitting Xvp Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We set the line energy at the peak of the observed gas spectrum E line = 0.8 keV. The temperature in the region is T ∼ 0.4 keV (Wong et al 2011), so that the line is subject to thermal broadening by dv/c ∼ 6 × 10 −4 . Let us now compare the blackbody luminosity in this line with the total observed luminosity to estimate the efficiency of absorption.…”

Section: Optical Depth Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modeling Hot Gas Flow in the Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nucleus of NGC 3115

Shcherbakov

Wong

Irwin

et al. 2014

ApJ

Self Cite

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Based on the dynamical black hole (BH) mass estimates, NGC 3115 hosts the closest billion solar mass BH. Deep studies of the center revealed a very underluminous active galactic nucleus (AGN) immersed in an old massive nuclear star cluster. Recent 1 Ms Chandra X-ray visionary project observations of the NGC 3115 nucleus resolved hot tenuous gas, which fuels the AGN. In this paper we connect the processes in the nuclear star cluster with the feeding of the supermassive BH. We model the hot gas flow sustained by the injection of matter and energy from the stars and supernova explosions. We incorporate electron heat conduction as the small-scale feedback mechanism, the gravitational pull of the stellar mass, cooling, and Coulomb collisions. Fitting simulated X-ray emission to the spatially and spectrally resolved observed data, we find the best-fitting solutions with χ 2 /dof = 1.00 for dof = 236 both with and without conduction. The radial modeling favors a low BH mass <1.3 × 10 9 M . The best-fitting supernova rate and the best-fitting mass injection rate are consistent with their expected values. The stagnation point is at r st 1 , so that most of the gas, including the gas at a Bondi radius r B = 2 -4 , outflows from the region. We put an upper limit on the accretion rate at 2 × 10 −3 M yr −1 . We find a shallow density profile n ∝ r −β with β ≈ 1 over a large dynamic range. This density profile is determined in the feeding region 0. 5-10 as an interplay of four processes and effects: (1) the radius-dependent mass injection, (2) the effect of the galactic gravitational potential, (3) the accretion flow onset at r 1 , and (4) the outflow at r 1 . The gas temperature is close to the virial temperature T v at any radius.

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Hot Atmospheres, Cold Gas, AGN Feedback and the Evolution of Early Type Galaxies: A Topical Perspective

et al. 2018

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Most galaxies comparable to or larger than the mass of the Milky Way host hot, X-ray emitting atmospheres, and many such galaxies are radio sources. Hot atmospheres and radio jets and lobes are the ingredients of radiomechanical active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback. While a consensus has emerged that such feedback suppresses cooling of hot cluster atmospheres, less attention has been paid to massive galaxies where similar mechanisms are at play. Observation indicates that the atmospheres of elliptical and S0 galaxies were accreted externally during the process of galaxy assembly and augmented significantly by stellar mass loss. Their atmospheres have entropy and cooling time profiles that are remarkably similar to those of central cluster galaxies. About half display filamentary or disky nebulae of cool and cold gas, much of which has likely cooled from the hot atmospheres. We review the observational and theoretical perspectives on thermal instabilities in galactic atmospheres and the evidence that AGN heating is able to roughly balance

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RESOLVING THE BONDI ACCRETION FLOW TOWARD THE SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE OF NGC 3115 WITH CHANDRA

Cited by 68 publications

References 38 publications

Inside the Bondi radius of M87

Inside the Bondi radius of M87

Modeling Hot Gas Flow in the Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nucleus of NGC 3115

Hot Atmospheres, Cold Gas, AGN Feedback and the Evolution of Early Type Galaxies: A Topical Perspective

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