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V.L. Sciortino, C.L. Martin (UC Santa Barbara)
Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs) are the most luminous galaxies in the local universe. These galaxies are powered by massive star formation that also give rise to starburst winds and are often the result of galaxy mergers. We present new Chandra and XMM-Newton imaging of IRAS 10565+2448 at z=0.043 and compare it to archival observations of IRAS 17208-0014. Both show diffuse X-ray emission at distances several times the radius of these large galaxies. We discuss the spectral constraints on the source of the diffuse emission. We compare the X-ray morphology to near infrared NICMOS images and optical/UV images, and find that there was a correlation between certain morphological features in both the infrared and x-ray images of IRAS 10565+2448, possibly caused by tidal interactions on the sources of emission. The main galaxy in the merger of IRAS 10565+2448 showed hard X-rays (1.1-6.0 keV) concentrated at its center as well as both galaxies in the IRAS 17208-0014 merger showed hard X-rays (1.1-6.0 keV) concentrated at their centers, characteristic of galaxies having Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). However, we also observed elongated medium x-ray (0.7-1.1 keV) emission regions in both galaxies: to the southwest in IRAS 10565+2448 and to the south and northwest in IRAS 17208-0014. All three medium band emissions were out to ~5 times the radius of the host galaxy. Soft x-ray (0.3-0.7 keV) emission dominated beyond this radius out to about ~20 times the radius of the host galaxy.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.