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J.N. Bregman, E. Lloyd-Davies (University of Michigan)
The absorption by OVII and OVIII at zero redshift can be interpreted as a very extensive Local Group medium, whose baryonic mass is greater than that of the known galaxies. This result is model dependent, and for different assumptions, this gas could be a halo around the Milky Way, with hot gas mass that is a fraction of the Milky Way mass. These two models, the Local Group and the Milky Way halo pictures make different predictions for the column of hot gas as a function of Galactic latitude and longitude. In the Local Group picture, the OVII column should be greatest along the Milky Way - M31 axis, and we test that prediction by XMM observations of OVII column densities toward 8 objects. We find enhancement in the column density along the Milky Way - M31 axis, suggesting that this hot gas resides primarily in a Galactic halo of extent 50 kpc. Support for this program was provided by NASA.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #3
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.