Mon.Not.R.Astron.Soc.000,1–12(2006) Printed5February2008 (MNLATEXstylefilev2.2) A new superwind galaxy: XMM-Newton observations of NGC 6810 David K. Strickland⋆ Department of Physics & Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, U.S.A. 7 0 0 Accepted ...,Received...;inoriginal... 2 n a ABSTRACT J 2 We present the first imaging X-ray observation of the highly inclined (i = 78◦) 2 SabSeyfert2galaxyNGC6810usingXMM-Newton,whichrevealssoftX-rayemission that extends out to a projected height of ∼7 kpc away from the plane of the galaxy. 1 The softX-rayemissionbeyondthe opticaldiskofthe galaxyis mostplausibly extra- v planar, although it could instead come from large galactic radius. This extended X- 0 3 ray emission is spatially associated with diffuse Hα emission, in particular with a 6 prominent 5-kpc-longHα filament on the north-westof the disk. A fraction.35%of 1 the total soft X-ray emission of the galaxy arises from projected heights |z|> 2 kpc. 0 Within the optical disk of the galaxy the soft X-ray emission is associated with the 7 star-forming regions visible in ground-based Hα and XMM-Newton Optical Monitor 0 near-UV imaging. The temperature, super-Solar α-element-to-iron abundance ratio, h/ softX-ray/Hαcorrelation,andX-raytofar-IRfluxratioofNGC6810areallconsistent p with local starbursts with winds, although the large base radius of the outflow would - make NGC 6810 one of the few “disk-wide” superwinds currently known. Hard X- o ray emission from NGC 6810 is weak, and the total E = 2 – 10 keV luminosity and r t spectral shape are consistent with the expected level of X-ray binary emission from s the old and young stellar populations. The X-ray observations provide no evidence of a : any AGN activity. We find that the optical,IR and radioproperties of NGC 6810are v all consistent with a starburst galaxy,and that the old classificationof this galaxy as i X a Seyfert 2 galaxy is probably incorrect. r Key words: Galaxies: halos – Galaxies:individual: NGC 6810 – Galaxies:Seyfert – a Galaxies: starburst – X-rays: galaxies. 1 INTRODUCTION the minor axes of spiral galaxies, noting that the high mi- nor axis velocity dispersion and kinematics were sugges- NGC 6810 is a early-type spiral galaxy (morpholog- tive of an outflow. The moderately high inclination2 of ical type Sab(s):sp, Tully 1988) also classified as a NGC 6810, i = 78◦, is advantageous for studies of extra- Seyfert 2 (NASA Extragalactic Database1; see also planar emission and is similar to other galaxies with well- Kirhakos & Steiner 1990b). Despite being relatively nearby studied superwinds such as NGC 253, NGC 3079 and M82 (D ∼ 27 Mpc, see below) it has not been the target of (i ∼ 76,78,85◦ respectively, using averages of the values much observational study. What little literature on NGC given in Strickland et al. 2004). 6810 exists suggests that a powerful galactic-scale out- Superwinds may play important roles in galaxy forma- flow(orsuperwind,Heckman et al.1990)emanatesfrom it. tion and evolution (see e.g. Heckman 2003; Veilleux et al. Hameed & Devereux (1999) present a Hα image of NGC 2005, and references therein), but examples of starburst- 6810aspartofastudyofstarformation ratesinearlytype driven winds that are nearby, bright enough and have spirals, but do not comment on the ∼ 5 kpc-long emission line filament rising at an angle of ∼ 45◦ out of the plane of the galaxy that is visible in their image. Coccato et al. (2004) observed NGC 6810 in a survey of ionized gas along 2 WederiveaninclinationforNGC6810ofi=78◦ basedonthe opticalangularsizeparameterD25andR25valuesgiveninTully (1988). The minor to major axis angular size ratio q =10−R25, ⋆ E-mail:[email protected] fromwhichfollowstheinclinationi=cos−1p([q2−q2]/[1−q2]) 0 0 1 NED:http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/ whereq0=0.2fortypeSabgalaxies(Haynes &Giovanelli1984). 2 D. K. Strickland Figure1.SmoothedXMM-NewtonEPICPNandMOSimagesofNGC6810.Panelsathroughcareexposure-correctedandbackground- subtracted combined MOS1+MOS2 images in the E = 0.3 – 1.1, 1.1 – 2.8 and 2.8 – 8.0 keV energy bands respectively. The dashed ellipse represents the inclination-corrected d25 ellipse of NGC 6810 (see Tully 1988). The coordinate system shown is the offset from the2MASSnear-IR center ofNGC 6810 atα=19:43:34.4, δ=-58:39:20.6(J2000.0). Each ofthe grey-scaleimageshas been adaptively smoothedandisshownonasquare-rootintensityscale.Theoverlaidcontoursarefromimagessmootheduniformlywitha2-dimensional GaussianmaskofFWHM =15′′.Contours beginatasurfacebrightness ofΣ=4.0×10−7 MOScounts s−1arcsec−2 andincreasein factorsoftwo.Thelowestcontoursareequivalentto4.7σ,4.6σand4.3σinthethreeenergybands.Panelsdthroughfaretheequivalent imagesfromthePN detector. Herethecontour levels beginat Σ=9.6×10−7 PNcounts s−1arcsec−2,andincreaseinfactors oftwo. Thelowestcontoursareequivalentto3.0σ,4.7σ and4.1σ inthethreeenergybands.Extended, possiblyextra-planar,X-rayemissionis mostclearlydetected intheE=0.3–1.1keVsoftX-rayband. suitable inclinations for detailed study are moderately 2 OBSERVATIONS AND DATA ANALYSIS rare3. The existence and properties of AGN-driven super- To test these hypotheses NGC 6810 was observed with winds are even less well constrained (Colbert et al. 1996; XMM-Newtonfor∼49ksstartingon2004April25(Obser- Levenson et al. 2001b; Colbert et al. 2005). Given its prox- vation ID 0205220101). imityandSeyfert2classification wejudgedthatNGC6810 We processed the data using version 6.5 of the XMM- deserved investigation. Newton SAS software, rerunning the EPIC MOS and PN All currently known superwinds display extended soft andOpticalMonitor(OM)analysispipelineswiththelatest diffuse X-ray emission from gas at a temperature logT ∼ calibration data. Heasoft version 5.3.1 and Ciao 3.2 were 6.5,commonlyinclosespatialproximitytothewarmionized alsousedduringdatareduction.Therecommendedstandard gasatlogT ∼4(Dahlem et al.1998;Strickland et al.2004; eventgradefiltersandprotonflarescreeningwasappliedto Tu¨llmann et al.2006).IfthereisasuperwindinNGC6810 eachdataset.Afterfilteringtheremainingexposuretimesin thereshouldbea5–10kpc-scalesoftX-rayhaloaroundthe the XMM observation were 25.5 ks and 44.1 ks for PN and galaxy. The presence of the Seyfert nucleus should also be each MOS instrumentsrespectively. clear in thehard X-ray energy band,either via direct AGN Spectra and response files were created using SAS and X-rayemissionorbyareflectioncomponentandfluorescent the methods described in the on-line SAS Data Analysis iron line emission. Threads4.SpectralfittingwasperformedusingXspec(ver- sion 11.3.1t). Simultaneous broad-band optical imaging in V, B, U, 3 Withinadistanceof30Mpcthereareapproximately14galax- UVW1 (λ ∼ 245 – 320 nm) and UVM2 (λ ∼ 205 – 245 ieswithinclinationsi&60◦withknownorsuspectedsuperwinds, nm)bandswasobtainedusingtheOMinstandardimaging excluding NGC 6810. In order of increasing distance these are NGC 253, NGC 1482, NGC 1511, NGC 1569, NGC 1808, NGC 2146,M82(NGC3034),NGC3044,NGC3079,NGC3628,NGC 4631,NGC4666,NGC4945andNGC5775. 4 Seehttp://xmm.vilspa.esa.es/sas/new/documentation/threads/ XMM-Newton observations of NGC 6810 3 mode(Mason et al.2001).Theseobservationsachievedtyp- Theprofilesdisplay thetotalsurface soft X-raybright- icallimitingmagnitudesfora5σ detectionof19.5 (V),20.7 ness, the surface brightness of the expected background (B), 20.1 (U), 20.1 (UVW1) and 19.4 (UVM2). Regions of (both the genuine X-ray and particle background) and the theimages neartoNGC6810aremarred byelliptical stray background-subtractedemissionassociatedwithNGC6810. light features caused by internal reflections within the OM A version of the SAS processing task edetect chain, al- telescope. tered to correctly treat the presence of diffuse emission in CopiesoftheR-bandandcontinuum-subtractedHαim- and around NGC 6810, was used to detect X-ray sources ages ofNGC6810 presentedin Hameed & Devereux(1999) andcreatemapsofthetotalbackgroundandexposuretime were obtained from theNASAExtragalactic Database. As- overtheentirefieldofviewofeachoftheMOS1,MOS2and trometric solutions for these images were calculated based PN instruments. The surface brightness profiles were cre- on the V-band OM images, which match up with Digital ating using this location-specific background and exposure Sky Survey images to within . 1′′. Pointing offsets during time information, excluding statistically significant X-ray theOM observations were typically also .1′′. sources (other than NGC 6810 itself) and detector-specific NGC6810isnotbrightenoughanX-raysourcetopro- chip-gaps, bad CCD pixels and bad columns. The values of videusefulX-rayspectrawiththegratingspectrometerson the MOS and PN backgrounds produced by this method is XMM-Newton (the RGS). The RGS data are not discussed within ∼ 1% of the average local background values used further. for the images displayed in Fig. 1 and the X-ray spectra discussed in § 3.4. Each bin in the surface brightness pro- files was initially the sum of the data in a region of width 2′.′5 parallel totheaxisof interest andtotal length 76′′ per- 3 X-RAY RESULTS pendiculartothataxis.Subsequentlyconsecutivebinswere rebinnedwiththeaimofachievingaminimumof20counts 3.1 The spatial distribution of the X-ray emission perfinal bin. Images in E = 0.3 – 1.1, 1.1 – 2.8 and 2.8 – 8.0 keV en- In an effort to maximize the signal-to-noise for the ergybandswerecreatedfromtheEPICPNandMOSdata. faintest emission the data from the PN and both MOS de- These energy bands were chosen based on the X-ray spec- tectorswascombined,anditisthesecombinedprofilesthat trum of NGC 6810 discussed below. The images from each areshown inthetoppanelsofFig. 2.Ingeneralthesurface MOSdetectorwerecombinedforthepurposesoffurtherim- brightnessprofilesproducedfromthePN,MOS1andMOS2 age analysis. In each energy band thebackground intensity detectorsindividually were verysimilar toeach other(with was estimated as the mean surface brightness on the same the PN and MOS2 profiles being the most similar to each CCDchipasNGC6810,afterexcludingthedatawithinara- other), justifying their combination. The profiles from the diusof30′′ ofanydetectedpoint-likeX-raysourceorwithin MOS1 detector were the most different, and are shown in 90′′ of NGC 6810. A simple uniform-level background sub- thelowerpanelsofFig.2,butstilldisplaythesamegeneral traction is appropriate given the relative compactness and features. brightness of the X-rayemission from NGC 6810. ThesoftX-rayminorandmajoraxissurfacebrightness Figure.1showsadaptivelysmoothedPNandcombined profilesforNGC6810aresimilarinformtothediffuseemis- MOS images of NGC 6810 overlaid with surface brightness sionprofilesfoundinChandraX-rayobservationsofhighly- iso-contours from images smoothed with a FWHM = 15′′ inclinedstarburstgalaxies(Strickland et al.2004),although Gaussian mask.Displaying thePN andcombined MOS im- notethatintheXMM-Newtondatawecannotrobustlyre- agesseparatelyishelpfulwhenstudyingfaintextendedemis- move X-ray emission from the point sources in NGC 6810. sion in that it allows us to ascertain whether certain fea- The surface brightness drops rapidly with increasing dis- tures of interest are genuine and which may be statisti- tance from the nucleus of the galaxy along both minor and cal or smoothing artifacts. The lowest contour levels dis- major axes. The minor axis profiles also clearly show the playedintheseimagesarebetween3–4.7σ abovetheback- asymmetry in the soft extended emission between the east ground, given the FWHM = 15′′ uniform smoothing (see andwestsidesofthedisk,presumablycausedbyabsorption Hardcastle 2000). within thedisk of NGC 6810. InthesesmoothedimagesthesoftextendedX-rayemis- Noobviousendoredgetothethisextendedsoft X-ray sion can be traced out to a projected angular separation of emission can be discerned from this data. At low signal- z ∼ 60 – 70′′ (∼ 8 – 9 kpc) from the plane of NGC 6810. to-noise the emission appears to extends out to projected The emission appears to arise from within the optical disk distances of |z| or |r| ∼10 – 15 kpc (∼ 75 – 115′′) from interiortoaradiusof∼50′′ (6.5kpc)fromthecenterofthe the center of the galaxy. However it is possible that, rather galaxy. The centroid of the soft X-ray emission is slightly than genuine emission from these locations, we are instead offset to the north west of the center of the galaxy. In the seeingemissionfromthebrightcentralregionsofNGC6810 hard X-ray band (E =2.8 – 8.0 keV) a single point-like re- in the very extended, but low surface brightness, wings of gionofemission,roughlycoincidentwiththecenterofNGC theXMM-Newton PSF.However,at intermediatedistances 6810, is visible. fromthenucleustheextendedemissionmustpredominantly Smoothingwill artificially increasetheapparentextent be genuine, as the central core of the PSF is too compact oftheX-rayemission. Tobetterquantifytheprojected size (FWHM∼6′′,HalfEnergyWidth∼12′′)toberesponsible ofthesoftX-rayemission1-dimensionalprofilesoftheX-ray for the ∼ 1′ diameter region of bright soft X-ray emission surface brightness along the major and minor axes of NGC (e.g. Fig. 1 or Fig. 2). 6810 were created (see Fig. 2), excluding theemission from With no clear edge and the effect of the PSF it is im- X-ray sources not obviously associated with NGC 6810. possibletoquantifythesizeoftheextendedsoftX-rayemis- 4 D. K. Strickland Figure 2.SoftX-ray(E=0.3–1.1keV)surfacebrightnessprofilesalongtheminorandmajoraxesofNGC6810.X-raysourcesother than NGC 6810 have been excluded. The total surface brightness is shown as open diamonds (green), with the expected background (frombothX-raysandparticles)shownasopencircles(red).Thebackground-subtracteddataisshownasfilledcircles(blue).Allofthe valueswereevaluated inslicesoftotaldepth 76′′ (∼10kpc)perpendiculartotheaxisofinterest.Panelsaandbdisplaythecombined MOSandPNdata,whilepanelscandddisplaydatafromMOS1alone.GapsinthedataareduetogapsbetweentheCCDchips.The errorbarsrepresent1σuncertainties.IntheminoraxisprofilethenegativeaxisliestotheeastofthediskasseeninFig.1.Inthemajor axisprofilethenegativeaxisextends towardthenorthfromthecenter ofthegalaxy. sioninamannerthatisnotobservation-specific.Incommon theoffsetoftheopticalandUVnucleusfromtheIRmaybe withobservationsofextra-planarradioemission fromspiral duetoobscuration.Alternativelythe2MASSpositionmight galaxies (e.g. Dahlem et al. 1995, 2006) we will quote the beinerror,inwhichcasethetruenucleusofNGC6810lies extentastheobservedsizeatafixedstatisticalsignificance, at α=19:43:34.3, δ=-58:39:17.3 (±1′.′0) (J2000.0). here evaluated as the size at S/N = 3 in the background- With respect to the nucleus or the nearby UV/Hα/X- subtracted surface brightness profiles. Underthis definition ray central peak the larger-scale UV emission is the most theE =0.3–1.1keVemissionextendstoprojectedheights asymmetrically distributed. What appears to be a UV- ofz∼−7.0(west)andz∼+6.9kpc(east)alongtheminor bright arc partially cups the nuclear emission to the west axis,andalongthemajoraxistoprojectedradiiofr∼−6.3 and south, with a total major-axis diameter of ∼30′′, with (north) and r∼+6.5 kpc(south). scatteredfainterUVsourcesatslightlylargerradius.Inthe Hα image the UV arc and exterior fainter UV sources ap- peartoallbepartofaroughlyrectangularHα-brightregion 3.2 Comparison to UV and optical images alongPosition Angle∼167◦,(offset from thePAoftheop- tical disk by ∼ 9◦) and of total length ∼ 50′′. The north IfwecomparetheX-rayimagestoground-basedopticaland western edge of this region is the base of the most promi- near-UVimagesfromtheOpticalMonitoritbecomesappar- nentHαfilament,whichextendsat least ∼40′′ (∼5.3kpc) entthatthesoft diffuseX-rayemission isclosely associated from theplane of thegalaxy (see Fig 3i). withthestrongeststarformingregionsinthedisk,andwith warm-ionized gas such as theHαfilament that projects be- At low surface brightness the outer edge of the optical yond theoptical disk of thegalaxy (Fig. 3). disk sports a ring of Hii regions coincident with an optical The most intense soft X-ray emission occurs at the re- dust lane (Fig. 4). This ring is not visible in the soft X-ray gion ofbrightest optical and near-UVemission. Thisregion images, even though X-ray emission is detected at regions is slightly offset, by ∼ 3′.′5, to the NNW of the nuclear po- of similar Hα surface brightness outsideof theoptical disk. sition from the 2MASS near-IR observations (2MASS Ex- ThespatialresolutionoftheEPICPNandMOSinstru- tended Objects. Final Release, shown as the white cross in ments is insufficient to allow X-ray emission from compact panelsatocofFig.3).Thisoffsetislargerthanthe.1′′ac- sourcestobeseparatedfromtrulydiffuseemission.Theex- curacyoftheOM,opticaland2MASSIRimageastrometry. tendedsoftX-rayemissionweobserveislikelytobemainly Strongdust lanes throughout theoptical disk of thegalaxy diffusethermalemissionbutthiscannotbeprovenwiththe are visible in the 3 color composite image shown in Fig. 4, existing data. Observationswith the Chandra X-ray Obser- and even more so in an archival F606 HST WFPC2 image vatory would certainly allow a better separation of the ex- whichpartiallycoversthenuclearregionofNGC6810.Thus tendedemissionintodiffuseandpoint-likeX-raysources,in XMM-Newton observations of NGC 6810 5 Figure 3.Near-UVandoptical imagesofNGC6810. Panelsatocshowthecentral 90′′ asseenintheUV(UVM2filter),continuum- subtractedHαandsoftX-rayemission.Thecoordinatesofthenucleus,asfoundinthe2MASSsurvey,isshownasawhitecross.Panels d through f are XMM-Newton Optical Monitor images in the UVM2, UVW1 and U filters respectively, overlaid with the contours of E=0.3–1.1keVsoftX-rayemissionfromtheadaptivelysmoothMOSimage.Contourlevelsareatthesamesurfacebrightnesslevelsas inFig.1a.NotethestraylightartifacttothesouthwestofNGC6810.Panelsg,handiarethenarrowbandRandcontinuum-subtracted Hα+[Nii]imagestakenbyHameed&Devereux(1999).TheHα+[Nii]imageisshowninpanelshandiontwodifferentintensityscalesto presentboththehighandlowsurfacebrightnessopticalemission.Thewavelengthrangeofeachfilterisgiveninunitsofnm.Thedashed ellipserepresentstheinclination-correctedd25 ellipseofNGC6810.ThestrongestspursofextendedsoftX-rayemissionseenbeyondthe optical disk of the galaxy are clearly associated with Hα emission, in particular at the filament emerging from the northern-most UV brightregionintheUVM2imageandextending ∼40′′ (∼5.3kpc)tothenorth-west. particularinandaroundtheUVandHαbrightstarforming the galaxy may indeed be extra-planar emission at heights regions. of several kiloparsecs along the minor axis, or it might be emission at large galactic radius but still within the plane ofthegalaxy.Ascalediagramofthesescenariosisshownin Fig. 5. 3.3 Emission region geometry With an inclination of i = 78◦ the exact location of the IfmuchoftheX-rayandHαemissionisassociatedwith extended soft X-ray emission is ambiguous with respect to a starburst-driven wind then it can be seen from Fig. 5a the true disk plane of NGC 6810. In particular the soft X- that the apparent size of the emission features (i.e. seen in ray emission seen in projection beyond the optical disk of projection) is similar to but larger than their true vertical 6 D. K. Strickland Figure4.(a)Three-colorcompositeimageofNGC6810,withthecontinuum-subtractedHαimage(red),adaptively-smoothedE=0.3– 1.1keVMOS1+MOS2image(green)andR-bandimage(blue)allshownonahistogram-equalizationscale.Theassociationbetweenthe Hα filament on the NW side of the disk and the edge of the soft X-ray emission is apparent. (b) A UV/optical three-color composite imageofNGC6810,shownonthesamespatialscaleas(a).Theground-basedopticalR-bandimage(red),OMU-band(green)andOM UVW1images(blues)areallshownonahistogram-equalizationscale.Notetheprominentdustlanesinthediskandtotheeastofthe nucleus.TheannularstructuretotheSWofNGC6810seenintheUandUVW1imagesisanartifactofstraylightintheOMtelescope. extent.Intheexample shown thetrueradius of thebase of Asemissionfromlargegalacticradiusislesslikelythan theoutflowisassumed tober′ =6.5kpc.Thetruevertical extra-planar emission we will assume for the remainder of extent of the X-ray emission z′ ∼ 4 kpc can be calculated thepaperthattheemissionbeyondtheopticaldiskofNGC given that the apparent projected height z ∼ 7 kpc is the 6810 is extra-planar. sum of the projected extent of inclined disk (h = r′sinφ, Note that with the existing data we can not prove un- where φ=90−i) and the projected size of the edge of the ambiguouslythatthisisthecase.Sensitivehigh-spatialres- outflow lcosθ1/2, where θ1/2 is the half opening angle in olution X-ray observations with Chandra might be used to the truncated conical geometry we assume, and that z′ = distinguish between the two scenarios. If the emission ge- lsin(θ1/2+φ). ometry is similar to that shown in Fig. 5a then we would InthiscasemuchofthesoftX-rayemission(E .2keV) expect to see evidence of additional absorption of the X- withintheopticalconfinesofthediskandbeyonditislikely ray emission near the eastern optical edge of the disk, as to be genuinely-diffuse thermal emission. Indeed fitting the the X-ray emission seen in projection in this region would EPIC PN and MOS spectrum of theentire galaxy confirms need to pass through the intervening disk of NGC 6810 to thepresenceof asoft thermalcomponent(see below).Note reachus(anexampleofthiseffectcanbeseeninNGC253, that only a minorfraction of thesoft X-rayemission comes e.g. Pietsch et al. 2000). We would also need to know more from regions beyond the optical disk of the galaxy, and it abouttheHigasdistribution inNGC6810 beforeassessing shouldbenotedthatthetotalX-rayspectrumpresentedbe- whethersuchatestwerefeasible.Himappingwouldalsobe lowisnotnecessarilyrepresentativeofthis(possibly)extra- advantageous in providingmore accurate determinations of planar X-ray emitting material. theinclination angle of thedisk. If the emission seen at a projected height above the One explanation for the position angle offset between disk mid-plane z is not actually extra-planar then it must thelarge-scaleopticaldiskofNGC6810andtheUV,Hαand lieatalargegalacto-centric radius,r′ =z/cos(i),asshown softX-raybrightinnermost6kpcisthatthisisastellarbar. in Fig. 5b. For the optically-derived inclination of i = 78◦ Thepresenceofbars,andtheirassociation with thebaseof for NGC 6810 then the north-western Hα filament, with a the wind in superwind galaxies, has been remarked upon projected height ofz ∼5kpc,would actually extendoutto before(Strickland et al.2004).Howevertheexistingdatais r′∼22kpc.Thesoft X-rayemission extendstoaprojected equallyconsistentwiththeUVarcandHα-brightregionbe- height of z ∼ 7 kpc, implying a true radial extent of r′ ∼ ingpartially obscured innerspiralarmsoracircum-nuclear 34 kpc in this model. These values are large compared to star forming ring. the stellar radius of the galactic disk. Bright Hα and/or For the purpose of comparing the presumed extra- soft X-ray emission is not typically observed so far beyond planar emission with other highly inclined (i & 70◦) the stellar disk of spiral galaxies unless it is extra-planar star forming galaxies observed with Chandra and XMM- (Bland-Hawthorn et al. 1997; Read et al. 1997; Tyler et al. Newtonanestimateofthefractionofthetotal(background- 2004). subtracted)X-raycountrateintheE =0.3–1.1keVenergy The estimates of the true radial and vertical sizes are bandarisingatminoraxisheights|z|>2kpcisgiveninTa- sensitive to the assumed geometry, in particular uncertain- ble1.Thetotalcountratewasassessedinrectangularregion tiesintheinclinationofthegalaxy.Forexample,anerrorof oftotalwidth(alongthemajoraxisofthegalaxy)2.′39and only 5◦ in our adopted inclination would change the radial total(minor-axis)height2.′54(∼20kpc)centeredonthenu- extentoftheX-rayemission inthesecondcase givenabove cleus. Both MOS and PN data give a similar answer, with by between 30 and 70% from thevalueestimated above. ∼ 35% of the soft band X-ray emission coming from the XMM-Newton observations of NGC 6810 7 Figure5.AdiagramillustratingtwopossibledistributionsforthesoftX-rayemitting(thickbluedashedlines)andHαemittingmaterial (thinreddashedlines)inandaroundNGC6810.Thepanelsrepresentslicesperpendiculartotheplaneofthesky,i.e.alongthelinethe sight.ThesolidellipserepresentsthestellardiskofNGC6810,withamajor-axisdiameterof18.9kpcandaxialratio5:1(seebelow),at theadoptedinclinationofthediski=78◦.InbothpanelstheplaneoftheskyismarkedbythelineDD′.ThetrueminoraxisofNGC 6810isparalleltothelineEE′,andthetruemajoraxisisparalleltoFF′.ThescalebarAA′ representsaprojectedverticalheightof2 kpc.TheHαfilamentonthenorthwestsideofdiskextendsouttoaprojectedheightfromthemid-planeof5kpc(representedbyBB′), whilethe softX-rayemissionisdetected out toaprojected distance of7kpc fromthemid-plane(CC′)In panel (a) theassumption is thatsoftX-rayandHαemittingplasmaaredistributedwithinandabovethediskinageometrysimilartothatofthematerialobserved in galaxies with starburst-driven winds. The extra-planar emissionis most visible on a truncated conical surface that marks the outer edge of an outflow with a half-opening angle of θ ∼ 25◦ (based on the angle between the observed Hα filament and the projected 1/2 majoraxisofthegalaxy)andhasaradiusatitsbaseofr′=6.5kpc.Thisscenarioassumesacylindrically-symmetricgeometry.Inpanel (b)itisassumedthattheemissionlieswithintheplaneofthegalaxyandappearsinprojectionaboveandbelowtheopticaldiskofthe galaxybecauseitextends tomuchlargergalacticradiusthanthestars.Tosavespacenoemissionisshownonthelefthandsideofthis panelalthoughitisassumedtobethere. halo of NGC 6810. This halo fraction is not as accurate an vativeapproach and only fitthespectral datain theE=0.5 estimate of the fraction of diffuse X-ray emission from the – 10.0 keV energy band. halo as might be obtained with Chandra, given the larger InspectionoftheEPICspectrumofNGC6810(Fig.6) PSFwingsofXMM-Newton,thatwecannotseparatepoint reveals soft thermal emission with line features at ener- source from diffuse emission, and can not correct for the gies E . 2 keV and a fainter featureless continuum for probably higher absorption experienced by diffuse emission E & 2 keV. This is typical of CCD spectra of star form- withinthediskofthegalaxy.Neverthelessitislieswithinthe ing galaxies (see for e.g. Ptak et al. 1997; Dahlem et al. range of halo diffuse flux fraction found for other starburst 1998; Strickland et al. 2004; Tu¨llmann et al. 2006). There galaxies with superwinds (7 – 48%, Strickland et al. 2004), is no sign of the scattered AGN continuum or strong Fe-K andsupportsthehypothesisthatthesoftX-rayemission in fluorescencethatiscommonlyfoundinSeyfert2galaxies,in- NGC 6810 extendsfrom the disk into its halo. cludingthosewithstarbursts(Levenson et al.2001a,2002). Astatisticallysatisfactoryfitwasobtainedusingaspec- tral model comprised of an absorbed collisionally ionized plasma(weusedtheAPECplasmacode,Smith et al.2001) to represent the diffuse hot gas, and an additional more- 3.4 Spectral analysis highly-absorbed power law to represent X-ray binaries and We created X-ray spectra of NGC 6810 including all emis- any low luminosity AGN component. sion within a radius of 1′ of the nucleus. No attempt was Using a hot plasma model with Solar abundance ra- made to create multiple spectra of different regions within tios (Anders& Grevesse 1989) results in clear systematics NGC 6810 as the ∼ 100′′ angular diameter of the X-ray in the spectral fit residuals. The systematics in the resid- emissionfromNGC6810isonlyoforderseveralPSFwidths, uals disappeared once we fitted for the abundance of the and as the X-ray emission from within the galactic disk is α elements (specifically the abundances of O, Ne, Mg, Si essentially unresolved. and Ar were constrained to be equal) and iron. We ob- Backgroundspectrawerecreatedfromasource-freecir- tain an enhanced relative abundance of α-elements to iron cular region of radius 75′′ centered at α =19:43:30.1, δ =- (best fit Zα/ZFe ∼ 2Zα,⊙/ZFe,⊙), again characteristic of 58:37:04.5, directly adjacent to the region the NGC 6810 starburst galaxies (Strickland et al. 2004). Note that the spectra were extracted from, and also on the same CCD absolute values of the X-ray derived elemental abundances chips.Thebackground-subtractedcountratesforNGC6810 with respect to hydrogen are ambiguous, given that we are in each EPIC instrument are given in Table 1. fitting a simple spectral model to emission most probably Spectral models where fit simultaneously to the PN, coming from many spectrally-distinct regions within NGC MOS1 and MOS2 spectra, allowing for small cross- 6810 (Dahlem et al. 2000; Weaveret al. 2000) and also be- calibration uncertainties between the different detectors. cause there are degeneracies in fitting CCD-spectral reso- Thespectrawere binnedtoensureaminimumof 10 counts lution X-ray spectra of α-enhanced plasmas (Martin et al. per bin to allow the use of χ2 fitting. As calibration uncer- 2002; Strickland et al. 2004). A two-temperature plasma taintiesremainsignificantatlowenergiesweadoptaconser- model provides a marginally better fit than a single tem- 8 D. K. Strickland Table 1. X-ray count rates for NGC 6810, accumulated within a radius of 1′ of the center of NGC 6810. The background has been subtracted. Thehalocountratefractionisthefractionofthenetemissionaccumulatedatprojectedminoraxisheightsof|z|>2kpc. Parameter Units Countrateineachenergyband Halocountratefraction E=0.5–2.0keV E=2.0–10.0keV E=0.5–10.0keV E=0.3–1.1keV PNcountrate cts/s 0.1193±0.0025 0.0106±0.0012 0.1299±0.0027 0.37±0.02 MOS1countrate cts/s 0.0313±0.0010 0.0039±0.0006 0.0352±0.0011 0.35±0.03 MOS2countrate cts/s 0.0291±0.0009 0.0036±0.0006 0.0327±0.0011 0.35±0.03 Figure 6.(a) TheEPIC PN(filled circles),MOS1(open triangles)andMOS2(open squares) spectraof NGC 6810shown onalinear flux and energy scale, demonstrating the strength of the soft thermal component at energies below ∼ 1keV in comparison to higher energyemission.ThePNspectrumisrepeatedonalogarithmicscalein(b),withsolidlinesshowingthebest-fit2-temperaturethermal plus power law model fit to the spectrum. The predicted total spectrum is shown as a solid cyan line, the two APEC thermal plasma components as dash red and green lines and the power law component as a dotted blue line. (c) As (b), but showing the MOS1 and MOS2spectra. perature model, but we would expect the need for a multi- 4 THE NATURE OF NGC 6810 temperature plasma model to become more apparent with higher signal-to-noise spectra. The best-fit spectral param- The ∼ 7-kpc-scale extended soft X-ray emission discovered intheXMM-Newtonobservations,thepreviously-discovered eters for NGC 6810 are given in Table 2. To ease compar- ison to other galaxies observed with Chandra we present ∼5 kpc-scale Hα filament (Hameed & Devereux 1999) and fluxes and luminosities in the E = 0.3 – 8.0 keV energy theminor-axis warm ionized gas kinematics (Coccato et al. 2004)areincombinationconvincingevidenceforagalactic- band.Thetemperatureofthedominantthermalcomponent, scale superwind from NGC 6810. kT ∼ 0.6keV, is typical of values found in fits to the total X-ray emission from starburst galaxies (Read et al. 1997; Can we identify whether the outflow in NGC 6810 Ptak et al. 1997; Dahlem et al. 1998, 2003). We would ex- is a Seyfert 2-or-supernova-driven wind? It has already pect that thereis actually a range of temperatures present, beenmentionedthattheeffectivetemperature,apparentα- withtheextra-planaremissionbeingonaveragecoolerthan elementtoiron abundanceratioand halo-to-totalX-raylu- thethermal emission from thedisk. minosity ratios of NGC 6810 are consistent with the other localstarburstswithsuperwinds.Table3isacompilationof Thepowerlawcomponentbest-fitphotonindexΓ≈1.9 a variety of the pertinent parameters of NGC 6810 derived is again typical of a purely star forming galaxy. The dom- from theliterature. inance of the soft thermal component in the spectrum pre- NGC 6810 should be classified as a starburst galaxy ventsusfromconstrainingtheabsorptioncolumntowardthe based on standard IR diagnostics using IRAS fluxes. The hard X-ray source or sources. We fixed this column density 60µm to 100µm flux ratio of 0.56 is typical of starburst atN =2×1021cm−2,butequallygoodspectralfitscould H galaxies (Lehnert & Heckman 1996a,b). Of course a buried beobtainedwithN =1×1022cm−2.Forthepurposesofil- H AGN might also elevate the mean dust temperature above lustratingtheeffectthisuncertaintyhasonthebest-fitspec- that of a normal spiral galaxy, but we would then expect a tral parameters the best-fit single temperature hot plasma model plus heavily absorbed power law (N = 1022cm−2) lowermid-IRspectralslopeαIR∝logS60µm/S25µm.Again H NGC 6810 has IR properties typical of normal starburst, is also shown in Table 2. α = 1.87, significantly higher than the typical value of IR The similarity of thebest-fitpower law slope tobinary αIR.1.2ofIRASgalaxieswithAGN(Condon & Broderick emission from normal galaxies does not alone exclude the 1991). presence of an AGN, as Seyfert 1 galaxies also have hard With an total observed 4.85 GHz radio flux of 72±8 continuum spectra with Γ ∼ 1.9, but the hard X-ray lumi- mJy (Wright et al. 1994) and a radio to FIR flux ratio of nosity of NGC 6810 (L ∼{4±2}×1039ergs−1, E =2–8 q = 2.57, NGC 6810 falls on the radio/FIR correlation for X keV) is too low for an unobscured Seyfert galaxy. normalandstarburstgalaxies(mean<q>=2.75±0.14,see XMM-Newton observations of NGC 6810 9 Table 2.BestfitX-rayspectralparametersforNGC6810. Table 3.GeneralpropertiesofNGC6810. Parameter Units Spectral model Property Value Note 1T+PL 2T+PL Galaxytype Sab(s):sp 1 NHa 1021cm−2 0.78+−00..2393 0.09+−00..6049 cz 2031kms−1 2 kZZnToαFr1em1 ZZ1k0eαF4Ve,⊙,×⊙K 0020....35185789+−+−+−+−00000000........0109010826753045 0001....55304560+−+−+−+−00000000........0318021136487358 MD1id′i′iasatjoatrnDcaexiDsP.A. 112277378.361.◦19.◦3′,Mp1pc8c.9kpc 3414 knΓNToPHr2Lmb 2 1.1k.00e.42V1×cmK−2 1.1...0.7..3(F+−i00x..76e46d) 2011...039(F310+−+−+−ix000000e......d225118928752) vIMIRRr2o5bAAtaSSrySS2152µµmm 3218.1..524057×kJJm1yy0s1−01M⊙ 7756 normPL 104×L 0.15+−00..1078 0.17+−00..1130 IRASS60µm 18.2Jy 7 χ2 (d.o.f) ... 1500.6(3158) 1492.6(3156) IRASS100µm 32.6Jy 7 fX′,tot 10−14ergs−1 cm−2 22.0+−12..21 22.3+−13..01 S60µm/f100µm 0.56 7 fX,tot 10−14ergs−1 cm−2 34.3 25.8 αIR 1.87 8 ffXX,,APLPEC 1100−−1144eerrggss−−11 ccmm−−22 295.3.0+−+−53..4456..96 196.2.6+−+−53..3356..30 LSFIRRIR 43..72M×⊙10y10r−L1⊙ 79 LX,tot 1040ergs−1 3.0 2.3 S4.85GHz 72±8mJy 10 LLXX,,APLPEC 11004400eerrggss−−11 20..28+−+−0000....4543 10..58+−+−0000....3533 qf[NH=αIlIo]g6(5f8F3IR/H/fα4.85GHz) 260...56973×,01.06−212ergs−1 cm−2 111212,13 FWHM(Hα) 263kms−1 13 Note:– The spectral models used were (in the termi- FWHM([O III]) 304kms−1 13 nology used within xspec) wabs*(vapec+wabs*po) and LHα 6.1×1041ergs−1 12 wabs*(vapec+vapec+wabs*po). Both thermal and power SFRHα 1.88M⊙yr−1 9 lawcomponentsexperienceabsorptionbycomponentNHa,while logfX,APEC/fFIR -3.77–-3.60 14 thepowerlawcomponentexperiencesanadditionalcolumnNHb. The metal abundances (with respect to the Solar abundances of Anders&Grevesse(1989))ofboththermalcomponentswereas- 1. FromTully(1988). sumedtobethesameinthetwo-temperaturehotplasmamodel. 2. RecessionalvelocityfromSandersetal.(2003). TheAPECmodelnormalizationfactorK=10−14×EI/(4πD2) 3. AssumingH0=75kms−1 Mpc−1. where the emission integral EI = R nenHdV. The power law 4. The optically-derived inclination is described in § 1. The model normalization factor L is the photon flux in units of inclination-corrected angular diameter at 25th magnitude di = photons keV−1s−1 cm−2 measured at E = 1 keV. Fluxes 0.1×10(D25−0.22×R25) (inarcminutes),whereD25andR2525are and luminosities are quoted in the energy band E = 0.3 – 8.0 giveninTully(1988). keV. The total observed flux is f′ , i.e. no correction for X,tot 5. Theinclination-correctedrotationalvelocityisrelatedtothe absorptionhasbeenmade.Allotherfluxesandluminositieswere absorption-corrected to provide an estimate of the intrinsic flux W20valuegiveninTully(1988):vrot=0.5×W20/sini. emitted within NGC 6810. The confidence regions quoted for 6. Baryonic galactic mass Mbary = 109.79 × fluxes and luminosities are 68.3% confidence for one interesting (vrot/100kms−1)3.51 (Bell&deJong2001). parameter, all other confidence regions are 90% confidence for 7. IRAS flux densities are from Sandersetal. (2003), trans- one interestingparameter. Theerroronthe observed flux f′ formedinto a total 10 –1000µm luminosity usingthe equations X,tot was calculated using the Xspec flux Monte Carlo method, all inSanders&Mirabel(1996). otherfluxandluminosityerrorsaremoreapproximateastheyare 8. AsdefinedinCondon&Broderick(1991)themid-IRspec- basedonscalingtheuncertainties inthemodelnormalizations. tralslopeαIR=log(S60µm/S25µm)/log(60/25). 9. Star formationrates derived fromthe IR or Hαluminosity using the equations given in Kennicutt (1998), converted to a Condon & Broderick 1991). Forbes & Norris (1998) stud- ied the central few arcseconds of NGC 6810, finding a low Salpeter IMF between mass limits of 1 and 100 M⊙. The SFR assumingaKroupaIMFis1.7timeslarger. brightness temperature and a q-value consistent with star- 10. Radiofluxdensityat4.85GHzfromWrightetal.(1994). burst activity evenin this nuclear region. 11. The Far-IR to radio flux ratio q as defined in The star formation rate of NGC 6810 is SFR ∼ 2 – 3M⊙yr−1 based on the galaxy’s Hα and IR luminosities Condon&Broderick(1991). 12. Theextinction-correctedHαfluxisbasedontheHα+[Nii] (these rates assume a Salpeter IMF between mass limits of flux given in Hameed&Devereux (2005), corrected for [Nii] 1 and 100M⊙). The core-collapse SN rate associated with emission using the Nii/Hα flux ratio measured by Kewleyetal. this is approximately one-tenth of the star formation rate, (2001). The Cardellietal. (1989) extinction model was used to buttheassociatedkineticenergyinputofL ∼(1.2–2.0)× SN derive A(Hα) from the E(B-V) value found by Kewleyetal. 1042ergs−1 would be sufficient to power a superwind (the (2001). L value comes from the Leitherer et al. (1999) starburst SN 13. FromKirhakos&Steiner(1990b). model for constant star formation rate, evaluated 30 Myr 14. Logarithm of the total thermal X-ray flux to the after the onset of star formation). FIR flux defined as fFIR = 1.26 × 10−11(2.58S60µm + In local starbursts with superwinds the soft diffuse X- S100µm)ergs−1 cm−2. ray emission associated with the wind typically has a lu- 10 D. K. Strickland minosity that isonly several hundredthsof apercent of the 2-like luminosity of L ∼ (1.8±0.3)×1042ergs−1 if the X IRluminosityofthegalaxy.TheXMM-Newtonobservations source lies at the distance of NGC 6810. NGC 6810 also ofNGC6810lackthespatialresolutionnecessarytocleanly satisfiedtheiropticalspectroscopic criteriaforclassification separatediffusefrompoint-likeX-rayemission,butareason- as an AGN: [Nii]/Hα > 1.0 and/or FWHM ( [Oiii] or Hα) ableapproximationistousethetotalestimatedsoftthermal > 300kms−1, although just barely as only the [Oiii] line X-ray luminosity as a proxy for the truly diffuse emission. width satisfies their criterion (see Table 3). The logarithm of the ratio of the thermal X-ray flux to the A[Oiii]linewidththislargewouldbeunusualinanor- FIR flux is ∼−3.8 to -3.6 for NGC 6810 (see Tables 2 and malgalaxy,butnotinastarburstgalaxywithasuperwind, 3).Againthesenumbersareconsistentwithlocalstarbursts where the velocity of warm ionized gas typically reaches withsuperwinds,wherethelogofthesoftdiffuseX-rayflux 200 – 600kms−1 (Heckmanet al. 1990; Adelberger et al. to theFIR flux is −3.6±0.2 (Strickland 2004). 2003). Indeed Coccato et al. (2004) specifically discuss the The soft X-ray luminosity, X-ray/FIR luminosity ratio largelinewidthinNGC6810intermsofapossibleoutflow. and IRAS 60µm to 100µm flux ratio of NGC 6810 are ex- Kewley et al. (2001) apply a variety of galaxy classification tremely similar to those of NGC 1511, another starburst methodsbasedonopticallinefluxestoIRASgalaxiesinthe galaxy with a probable wind observed with XMM-Newton southern hemisphere. Of the eight methods they apply to (Dahlem et al. 2003). This is despite their baryonic masses NGC6810theyclassifyitasaHiigalaxysixtimes,withone differing by close to an order of magnitude. It illustrates method giving ambiguous results and one method yielding how strongly correlated the soft X-ray and FIR properties a classification of extreme starburst / borderline LINER. of star forming galaxies are, and (contrary to na¨ıve expec- Forbes & Norris(1998)alsosuggesttheNGC6810may tation) how little effect large galactic mass appears to have have been misclassified as being a Seyfert 2 galaxy, based on starburst-driven superwinds. Galaxy mass does appears on its starburst-like radio properties and unpublished opti- toplayaroleindeterminingthecriticalstarformation rate calspectra.HowevertheyalsopointoutthatseveralSeyfert perunitdiskareaforcreationofradio(andpresumablyhot galaxieswithnuclearstarformationhaveradioandIRprop- gas) halos around spiral galaxies (Dahlem et al. 2006), but erties dominated by the star formation despite being bona foragalaxyofthemassandsizeofNGC6810thetransition fideSeyfert 2 galaxies. between galaxies with and without radio halos occurs at a As we havediscussed thehard X-ray spectrum and lu- mean star formation rate per unit area approximately two minosityofNGC6810areinconsistentwithaSeyfert2clas- orders of magnitudelower than that found in NGC 6810. sification. Theidentification of NGC6810 with 1H1930-589 The X-ray emission not associated with the thermal is most probably spurious. That NGC 6810 had a signifi- components (i.e. the hard X-ray emission and the power cantly higher X-ray luminosity in the early 1980’s is a less law component, all presumably from compact objects) is likelyalternative,asthereisnootherevidenceofNGC6810 also at the level we would expect from purely stellar everbeingaluminoushardX-raysource(Ward et al.(1978) processes with no additional AGN contribution required. place a 3σ upper limit on the E = 2 – 10 keV luminosity Colbert et al. (2004) found an empirical relationship for of NGC 6810 of L < 6×1042ergs−1 based on Ariel 5 X the X-ray point source luminosity of galaxies from both data),norwouldtheopticalclassificationofthegalaxysug- young and old stellar populations. Given the stellar mass gest it to be, or have recently been, a Seyfert galaxy. The of NGC 6810 (∼ 8×1010M⊙, see Table 3) we would ex- possibility remains that either a low luminosity AGN, or a pect the point source X-ray luminosity from the old stel- more luminous but very heavily obscured AGN, is present lar population to be L ∼ 1.4 × 1040ergs−1 in the in NGC 6810. Deep observations with the Hard X-ray De- XP,old E = 0.3 – 8.0 keV energy band. The expected X-ray emis- tector(HXD)onSuzakuwouldbeneededtorulethesecond sionfrom pointsourcesassociated withongoingstarforma- possibility out, but at present we conclude that NGC 6810 tion is L ∼ 5.7×1039ergs−1 (we have corrected for does not deserve classification as an active galaxy. Radio XP,old the different IMFs used in the the SF rate given in Table 3 continuum observations of NGC 6810 would offer another and Colbert et al. (2004)). The total predicted X-ray point method of searching for a low luminosity AGN, in addition source luminosity of ∼ 2×1040ergs−1 is 2.5 times larger toconstrainingthelocationofrecentSNactivitywithinthe than the luminosity of the power law component in NGC disk. 6810, but this is within the level of scatter expected from There is one respect in which the outflow from NGC theColbert et al. relationship. 6810 may be less than typical, in that the wind appears to The above mentioned galactic properties and the lack originatenotinacompact(r.1kpc)nuclearstarburst(as of any sign of AGN activity in the 0.5 – 10 keV en- seenin “classic” superwind galaxies suchasNGC253, M82 ergy band cast doubt on the classification of NGC 6810 andNGC3079),buttohavealarger∼6.5-kpcradiusbase. as a Seyfert 2 galaxy. The original classification of NGC Such“disk-wide” superwindsare lesscommon thanthenu- 6810 as a Seyfert 2 galaxy is due to Kirhakos & Steiner clearsuperwinds,althoughthereareahandfulofpreviously (1990b), based on follow-up optical spectroscopy of IRAS known examples such as NGC 4666 (Dahlem et al. 1997) sources near to or within the HEAO-1 hard X-ray error and NGC 5775 (Tu¨llmann et al. 2006). The base radius of boxes of previously unidentifiedX-ray sources (Wood et al. a superwind appears to match the region of active star- 1984; Kirhakos & Steiner 1990a). Kirhakos& Steiner iden- formation (see e.g. Strickland 2004), and as we have men- tified NGC 6810 as the counterpart to the HEAO-1 source tioned earlier may be related to stellar bars (for unknown 1H1930-589, even though NGC 6810 lies outside the 95% reasons). Indeed, one of the greatest current weaknesses of confidence error box of this source. This X-ray source had numerical models of superwinds is their failure to produce a E = 2 – 10 keV X-ray flux of f ∼ (2.0 ± 0.3) × awindbaseradiusequaltotheradiusofthestarformation X 10−11ergs−1 cm−2, which would correspond to a Seyfert- region without imposing unphysical boundary conditions