Chandra large-scale mapping of the Galactic center: Probing high-energy structures around the central molecular zone

Recent observations have revealed interstellar features that apparently connect energetic activity in the central region of our Galaxy to its halo. The nature of these features, however, remains largely uncertain. We present a Chandra mapping of the central 2x4 square degree field of the Galaxy, revealing a complex of X-ray-emitting threads plus plume-like structures emerging from the Galactic center (GC). This mapping shows that the northern plume or fountain is offset from a well-known radio lobe (or the GCL), which however may represent a foreground HII region, and that the southern plume is well wrapped by a corresponding radio lobe recently discovered by MeerKAT. In particular, we find that a distinct X-ray thread, G0.17-0.41, is embedded well within a nonthermal radio filament, which is locally inflated. This thread with a width of ~1.6" (FWHM) is ~6 pc long at the distance of the GC and has a spectrum that can be characterized by a power law or an optically-thin thermal plasma with temperature ~3 keV. The X-ray-emitting material is likely confined within a strand of magnetic field with its strength > 1 mG, not unusual in such radio filaments. These morphological and spectral properties of the radio/X-ray association suggest that magnetic field re-connection is the energy source. Such re-connection events are probably common when flux tubes of antiparallel magnetic fields collide and/or become twisted in and around the diffuse X-ray plumes, representing blowout superbubbles driven by young massive stellar clusters in the GC. The understanding of the process, theoretically predicted in analog to solar flares, can have strong implications for the study of interstellar hot plasma heating, cosmic-ray acceleration and turbulence.
Comment: accepted for publication in MNRAS