X-ray emission from the Wolf-Rayet bubble NGC 6888 - II. XMM-Newton EPIC observations

We present deep XMM-Newton European Photon Imaging Camera observations of the Wolf-Rayet (WR) bubble NGC 6888 around the star WR 136. The complete X-ray mapping of the nebula confirms the distribution of the hot gas in three maxima spatially associated with the caps and north-west blowout hinted at...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Toalá, Jesús A., Guerrero, Martín A., Chu, Y. -H., Arthur, S. J., Tafoya, D., Gruendl, R. A.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/377145
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/377145
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Stars: Wolf-Rayet
ISM: bubbles
ISM: individual objects: (NGC 6888)
X-rays: individual: (NGC 6888)
X-rays: individual (WR 136)
Descripción
Sumario:We present deep XMM-Newton European Photon Imaging Camera observations of the Wolf-Rayet (WR) bubble NGC 6888 around the star WR 136. The complete X-ray mapping of the nebula confirms the distribution of the hot gas in three maxima spatially associated with the caps and north-west blowout hinted at by previous Chandra observations. The global X-ray emission is well described by a two-temperature optically thin plasma model (T = 1.4 × 10 K, T = 8.2 × 10 K) with a luminosity of L = 7.8 × 10 erg s in the 0.3-1.5 keV energy range. The rms electron density of the X-ray-emitting gas is estimated to be n = 0.4 cm. The high-quality observations presented here reveal spectral variations within different regions in NGC 6888, which allowed us for the first time to detect temperature and/or nitrogen abundance inhomogeneities in the hot gas inside a WR nebula. One possible explanation for such spectral variations is that the mixing of material from the outer nebula into the hot bubble is less efficient around the caps than in other nebular regions. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.