Seminar by Rajsekhar Mohapatra, Princeton
In the central few kpcs of massive ellipticals (Mhalo ∼ 1013–1014 M⊙), significant amounts of energy and mass are injected into the interstellar medium (ISM) by their old stellar population through type Ia supernovae (SNIa) and mass loss from asymptotic giant branch stars (AGB). The energy injection can offset the losses due to radiative cooling, and the AGB mass loss can alter the composition of the ISM and its density within 100 Myr, much smaller than the age of these systems.
We simulate the inner ten kiloparsecs of the hot ISM of nearby massive ellipticals, taking the galaxy NGC 1399 as a representative. We find that the ISM is regulated by a combination of the SNIa heating and AGB mass loss, which determine its density and entropy profiles, regardless of our chosen initial conditions. The thermodynamic profiles we generate reproduce the X-ray observed profiles (Werner et al., 2012) within 100 Myr.
Host: Lachlan Lancaster