[90.07] The nature of the nuclear, extended, and compact X-ray sources in the Circinus Galaxy: an observation with \emph{Chandra}

AAS 197, January 2001
Session 90. Multiwavelength Surveys for AGN
Oral, Wednesday, January 10, 2001, 10:30am-12:00noon, San Diego

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[90.07] The nature of the nuclear, extended, and compact X-ray sources in the Circinus Galaxy: an observation with \emph{Chandra}

D. A. Smith, A. S. Wilson, A. J. Young (University of Maryland), Y. Terashima (NASA/GSFC)

We present a recent \emph{Chandra} ACIS-S observation of the Circinus galaxy. Several emission components are seen within 1~arcmin of the nucleus: these include (1) a Compton thick Seyfert 2 nucleus, (2) a plume-like structure extending from the nucleus to the NW, probably associated with the bi-conical structure seen in the optical, (3) extended X-ray emission from hot gas in the ENLR, and (4) several bright compact X-ray sources with luminosities, if they reside at the distance of Circinus, in the range 10³⁷--10³⁹~erg~s^-1. We will discuss the spectra of these components and attempt to distinguish between photoionized and collisionally ionized gas in the extended components.

This reserch made use of funding through NASA grant NAG-81027.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: dasmith@astro.umd.edu

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