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Galactic cosmic-ray (GCR) particles have a significant impact on the particle-induced background of X-ray observatories, and their flux exhibits substantial temporal variability, potentially influencing background levels. In this study, we present 1 day binned high-energy reject rates derived from the Chandra-ACIS and XMM-Newton EPIC-pn instruments, serving as proxies for the GCR particle flux. We systematically analyze the ACIS and EPIC-pn reject rates and compare them with the AMS proton flux. Our analysis initially reveals robust correlations between the AMS proton flux and the ACIS/EPIC-pn reject rates when binned over 27 day intervals. However, a closer examination reveals substantial fluctuations within each 27 day bin, indicating shorter-term variability. Upon daily binning, we observe finer temporal structures in the data sets, demonstrating the presence of recurrent variations with periods of ∼25 days and 23 days in the ACIS and EPIC-pn reject rates, respectively, spanning the years 2014–2018. Notably, during the 2016–2017 period, we additionally detect periodicities of ∼13.5 days and 9 days in the ACIS and EPIC-pn reject rates, respectively. Intriguingly, we observe a time lag of ∼6 days between the AMS proton flux and the ACIS/EPIC-pn reject rates during the second half of 2016. This time lag is not visible before 2016 and after 2017. The underlying physical mechanisms responsible for this time lag remain a subject of ongoing investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the formation and growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their coevolution with host galaxies, it is essential to know the impact of environment on the activity of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). We present new Chandra X-ray observations of nuclear emission from member galaxies in the Antlia cluster, the nearest non-cool core and the nearest merging galaxy cluster, residing at D = 35.2 Mpc. Its inner region, centered on two dominant galaxies NGC 3268 and NGC 3258, has been mapped with three deep Chandra ACIS-I pointings. Nuclear X-ray sources are detected in 7/84 (8.3%) early-type galaxies (ETG) and 2/8 (25%) late-type galaxies with a median detection limit of 8 × 1038 erg s−1. All nuclear X-ray sources but one have a corresponding radio continuum source detected by MeerKAT at the L band. Nuclear X-ray sources detected in early-type galaxies are considered the genuine X-ray counterpart of low-luminosity AGN. When restricted to a detection limit of log (L X / erg s − 1) ≥ 38.9 and a stellar mass of 10 ≤ log (M ⋆ / M ⊙) < 11.6 , six of 11 ETGs are found to contain an X-ray AGN in Antlia, exceeding the AGN occupation fraction of 7/39 (18.0%) and 2/12 (16.7%) in the more relaxed, cool core clusters, Virgo and Fornax, respectively, and rivaling that of the AMUSE-Field ETG of 27/49 (55.1%). Furthermore, more than half of the X-ray AGN in Antlia is hosted by its younger subcluster, centered on NGC 3258. We believe that this is because SMBH activity is enhanced in a dynamically young cluster compared to relatively relaxed clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We derive predictions from state-of-the-art cosmological galaxy simulations for the spatial distribution of the hot circumgalactic medium (CGM, [0.1–1] R 200c) through its emission lines in the X-ray soft band ([0.3–1.3] keV). In particular, we compare IllustrisTNG, EAGLE, and SIMBA and focus on galaxies with stellar mass |$10^{10-11.6}\, \rm {M}_{\odot }$| at z  = 0. The three simulation models return significantly different surface brightness radial profiles of prominent emission lines from ionized metals such as O  vii (f), O  viii , and Fe  xvii as a function of galaxy mass. Likewise, the three simulations predict varying azimuthal distributions of line emission with respect to the galactic stellar planes, with IllustrisTNG predicting the strongest angular modulation of CGM physical properties at radial range |${{\gtrsim}0.3{-}0.5\, R_{200c}}$|⁠. This anisotropic signal is more prominent for higher energy lines, where it can manifest as X-ray eROSITA-like bubbles. Despite different models of stellar and supermassive black hole (SMBH) feedback, the three simulations consistently predict a dichotomy between star-forming and quiescent galaxies at the Milky Way and Andromeda mass range, where the former are X-ray brighter than the latter. This is a signature of SMBH-driven outflows, which are responsible for quenching star formation. Finally, we explore the prospect of testing these predictions with a microcalorimeter-based X-ray mission concept with a large field of view. Such a mission would probe the extended hot CGM via soft X-ray line emission, determine the physical properties of the CGM, including temperature, from the measurement of line ratios, and provide critical constraints on the efficiency and impact of SMBH feedback on the CGM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The galaxy cluster Zwicky 3146 is a sloshing cool-core cluster at z = 0.291 that in Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) imaging does not appear to exhibit significant pressure substructure in the intracluster medium. We perform a surface brightness fluctuation analysis via Fourier amplitude spectra on SZ (MUSTANG-2) and X-ray (XMM-Newton) images of this cluster. These surface brightness fluctuations can be deprojected to infer pressure and density fluctuations from the SZ and X-ray data, respectively. In the central region (Ring 1, r < 100″ = 440 kpc, in our analysis), we find fluctuation spectra that suggest injection scales around 200 kpc (∼140 kpc from pressure fluctuations and ∼250 kpc from density fluctuations). When comparing the pressure and density fluctuations in the central region, we observe a change in the effective thermodynamic state from large to small scales, from isobaric (likely due to the slow sloshing) to adiabatic (due to more vigorous motions). By leveraging scalings from hydrodynamical simulations, we find an average 3D Mach number ≈0.5. We further compare our results to other studies of Zwicky 3146 and, more broadly, to other studies of fluctuations in other clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the impact of resonantly scattered X-ray line emission on the observability of the hot circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies. We apply a Monte Carlo radiative transfer post-processing analysis to the high-resolution TNG50 cosmological magnetohydrodynamical galaxy formation simulation. This allows us to model the resonant scattering of  O  vii (r) X-ray photons within the complex, multiphase, multiscale CGM. The resonant transition of the O  vii He-like triplet is one of the brightest, and most promising, X-ray emission lines for detecting the hot CGM and measuring its physical properties. We focus on galaxies with stellar masses |$10.0\lt \log {(M_\star /\rm {M_\odot })}\lt 11.0$| at z ≃ 0. After constructing a model for  O  vii (r) emission from the central galaxy, as well as from CGM gas, we forward model these intrinsic photons to derive observable surface brightness maps. We find that scattering significantly boosts the observable  O  vii (r) surface brightness of the extended and diffuse CGM. This enhancement can be large – an order of magnitude on average at a distance of 200 projected kpc for high-mass M ⋆ = 1010.7 M⊙ galaxies. The enhancement is larger for lower mass galaxies and can even reach a factor of 100, across the extended CGM. Galaxies with higher star formation rates, AGN luminosities, and central  O  vii (r) luminosities all have larger scattering enhancements, at fixed stellar mass. Our results suggest that next-generation X-ray spectroscopic missions, including XRISM, LEM, ATHENA, and HUBS – which aim to detect the hot CGM in emission – could specifically target haloes with significant enhancements due to resonant scattering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eROSITA Final Equatorial Depth Survey (eFEDS), with a sky area of 140 square degrees with depth equivalent to the equatorial patch of the final eROSITA all-sky survey, represents the largest continuous non-full-sky X-ray fields to-date, making it the premier data set for measuring the angular power spectrum. In this work, we measure the X-ray angular power spectrum of galaxy clusters and groups in the eFEDS field. We show that the measured power spectrum is consistent with past observations, including the ROSAT All Sky Survey, and the Chandra COSMOS and Bootes fields. The predictions of cluster gas halo model that is calibrated from Chandra observations is also consistent with the eFEDS power spectrum. While the eFEDS does not have large enough sky coverage to provide meaningful cosmological constraints, we predict that the X-ray power spectrum from the cycle 4 of the eROSITA all-sky survey (eRASS4) will provide constraints on Ω M and σ8 at the |$10{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$| level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate how the X-ray circumgalactic medium (CGM) of present-day galaxies depends on galaxy morphology and azimuthal angle using mock observations generated from the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamic simulation. By creating mock stacks of eROSITA -observed galaxies oriented to be edge-on, we make several observationally testable predictions for galaxies in the stellar mass range M ⋆ = 1010.7–11.2 M⊙. The soft X-ray CGM of disc galaxies is between 60 and 100 per cent brighter along the semimajor axis compared to the semiminor axis, between 10 and 30 kpc. This azimuthal dependence is a consequence of the hot (T > 106 K) CGM being non-spherical: specifically, it is flattened along the minor axis such that denser and more luminous gas resides in the disc plane and corotates with the galaxy. Outflows enrich and heat the CGM preferentially perpendicular to the disc, but we do not find an observationally detectable signature along the semiminor axis. Spheroidal galaxies have hotter CGMs than disc galaxies related to spheroids residing at higher halo masses, which may be measurable through hardness ratios spanning the 0.2–1.5 keV band. While spheroids appear to have brighter CGMs than discs for the selected fixed M ⋆ bin, this owes to spheroids having higher stellar and halo masses within that M ⋆ bin, and obscures the fact that both simulated populations have similar total CGM luminosities at the exact same M ⋆. Discs have brighter emission inside 20 kpc and more steeply declining profiles with radius than spheroids. We predict that the eROSITA 4-yr all-sky survey should detect many of the signatures we predict here, although targeted follow-up observations of highly inclined nearby discs after the survey may be necessary to observe some of our azimuthally dependant predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine Chandra observations of the powerful Fanaroff–Riley class II (FR II) radio galaxy Cygnus A for an X-ray counterpart to the radio transient Cygnus A-2 that was first detected in 2011. Observations are performed using the High-Resolution Camera (HRC) instrument in order to spatially resolve Cygnus A-2 and the central active galactic nucleus (AGN) at a separation of  0.′′42. Simulated images are generated of the emission region, and radial profiles for the region of interest are extracted. A comparison between the simulations and observations reveals no X-ray detection of Cygnus A-2 to a 0.5–7.0 keV flux upper limit of |$1.04 \times 10^{-12}\rm \, erg\, cm^{-2}\, s^{-1}$|⁠ , or a rest-frame 2–10 keV luminosity of |$8.6\times 10^{42}\rm \, erg\, s^{-1}$|⁠. We estimate the black hole mass of Cygnus A-2 based on our X-ray flux limit and find it to be consistent with a flaring black hole rather than a steadily accreting source. The HRC observations are additionally compared with archival Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) data from 2016 to 2017, and both the overall morphology and the flux limits of the AGN complex agree between the two data sets. This consistency is despite the pile-up effect in ACIS which was previously considered to bias the observed morphology of the AGN. The agreement between the data sets demonstrates the viability of utilizing the archival Chandra data of Cygnus A to analyse its AGN at an unprecedented level of precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although observations of high-redshift quasars demonstrate that many supermassive black holes (BHs) reached large masses within one billion years after the Big Bang, the origin of the first BHs is still a mystery. A promising way to constrain the origin of the first BHs is to explore the average properties of z ≳ 6 BHs. However, typical BHs remain hidden from X-ray surveys, which is due to their relatively faint nature and the limited sensitivity of X-ray telescopes. Gravitational lensing provides an attractive way to study this unique galaxy population as it magnifies the faint light from these high-redshift galaxies. Here, we study the X-ray emission originating from 155 gravitationally lensed z ≳ 6 galaxies that were detected in the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey. We utilize Chandra X-ray observations to search for active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the individual galaxies and in the stacked galaxy samples. We did not identify an individual X-ray source that was undoubtedly associated with a high-redshift galaxy. We stack the signal from all galaxies and do not find a statistically significant detection. We split our sample based on stellar mass, star formation rate, and lensing magnification and stack these subsamples. We obtain a 2.2 σ detection for massive galaxies with an X-ray luminosity of (3.7 ± 1.6) Ă— 1042 erg sâˆ'1, which corresponds to a (3.0 ± 1.3) Ă— 105 M ⊙ BH accreting at its Eddington rate. Other stacks remain undetected and we place upper limits on the AGN emission. These limits imply that the bulk of BHs at z ≳ 6 either accrete at a few percent of their Eddington rate and/or are 1â€"2 orders of magnitude less massive than expected based on the stellar mass of their host galaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Chandra observations, we derive the YX proxy and associated total mass measurement, , for 147 clusters with z < 0.35 from the Planck early Sunyaev–Zeldovich catalog, and for 80 clusters with z < 0.22 from an X-ray flux-limited sample. We reextract the Planck YSZ measurements and obtain the corresponding mass proxy, , from the full Planck mission maps, minimizing Malmquist bias due to observational scatter. The masses reextracted using the more precise X-ray position and characteristic size agree with the published PSZ2 values, but yield a significant reduction in the scatter (by a factor of two) in the – relation. The slope is 0.93 ± 0.03, and the median ratio, , is within the expectations from known X-ray calibration systematics. YSZ/YX is 0.88 ± 0.02, in good agreement with predictions from cluster structure, and implying a low level of clumpiness. In agreement with the findings of the Planck Collaboration, the slope of the YSZ– flux relation is significantly less than unity (0.89 ± 0.01). Using extensive simulations, we show that this result is not due to selection effects, intrinsic scatter, or covariance between quantities. We demonstrate analytically that changing the YSZ–YX relation from apparent flux to intrinsic properties results in a best-fit slope that is closer to unity and increases the dispersion about the relation. The redistribution resulting from this transformation implies that the best-fit parameters of the – relation will be sample-dependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Chandra and ROSAT observations, we investigated the nearby poor cluster A194, which hosts two luminous radio galaxies, NGC 547 (3C 40B) and NGC 541 (3C 40A). We demonstrated the presence of a large X-ray cavity (r ~ 34 kpc) formed by the giant southern radio lobe arising from 3C 40B in NGC 547. The estimated age of the cavity is t = 7.9 x 107 years and the total work of the active galactic nucleus is 3.3 x 1059 erg, hence the cavity power is Pcav = 1.3 x 1044 erg s-1. Furthermore, in the Chandra images of NGC 545 and NGC 541 we detected sharp surface brightness edges, identified as merger cold fronts, and extended tails. Using the pressure ratios between inside and outside the cold fronts we estimated that the velocities of NGC 545 and NGC 541 correspond to Mach numbers of Due to image rights restrictions, multiple line equation(s) cannot be graphically displayed, respectively. The low radial velocities of these galaxies relative to the mean radial velocity of A 194 imply that their motion is oriented approximately in the plane of the sky. Based on these and earlier observations, we concluded that NGC 545 and NGC 541 are falling through the cluster, whose center is NGC 547, suggesting that A194 is undergoing a significant cluster merger event. Additionally, we detected 20 bright X-ray sources around NGC 547 and NGC 541, a surprisingly large number, since the predicted number of resolved low-mass X-ray binaries and cosmic X-ray background sources is 2.2 and 4.1, respectively. To explain the nature of additional sources, different possibilities were considered, none of which are satisfactory. We also studied the origin of X-ray emission in Minkowski's object (MO) and concluded that it is most likely dominated by the population of high-mass X-ray binaries rather than by hot diffuse interstellar medium. Moreover, in view of the galaxy dynamics in A194, we explored the possibility that the starburst in MO was triggered by its past interaction with NGC 541, and concluded that it may be a viable path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chandra x-ray observations of NGC 4342, a low-stellar mass (MK = –22.79 mag) early-type galaxy, show luminous, diffuse x-ray emission originating from hot gas with temperature of kT ∼ 0.6 keV. The observed 0.5-2 keV band luminosity of the diffuse x-ray emission within the D25 ellipse is L0.5-2 keV = 2.7 × 1039 erg s–1. The hot gas has a significantly broader distribution than the stellar light, and shows strong hydrodynamic disturbances with a sharp surface brightness edge to the northeast and a trailing tail. We identify the edge as a cold front and conclude that the distorted morphology of the hot gas is produced by ram pressure as NGC 4342 moves through external gas. From the thermal pressure ratios inside and outside the cold front, we estimate the velocity of NGC 4342 and find that it moves supersonically (M ∼ 2.6) toward the northeast. Outside the optical extent of the galaxy, we detect ∼17 bright () excess x-ray point sources. The excess sources are presumably LMXBs located in metal-poor globular clusters (GCs) in the extended dark matter halo of NGC 4342. Based on the number of excess sources and the average frequency of bright LMXBs in GCs, we estimate that NGC 4342 may host roughly 850-1700 GCs. In good agreement with this, optical observations hint that NGC 4342 may harbor 1200 ± 500 GCs. This number corresponds to a GC specific frequency of SN = 19.9 ± 8.3, which is among the largest values observed in full-size galaxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]