Jun 15, 2021
Recent observations have revealed interstellar features that apparently
connect energetic activity in the central region of our Galaxy to its
halo. The nature of these features, however, remains largely uncertain.
We present a Chandra mapping of the central 2° × 4° field of
the Galaxy, revealing a complex of X-ray-emitting threads plus
plume-like structures emerging from the Galactic Centre (GC). This
mapping shows that the northern plume or fountain is offset from a
well-known radio lobe (or the GCL), which however may represent a
foreground H ii region, and that the southern plume is well wrapped by a corresponding radio lobe recently discovered by MeerKAT.
In particular, we find that a distinct X-ray thread, G0.17−0.41, is
embedded well within a non-thermal radio filament, which is locally
inflated. This thread with a width of ∼1.6 arcsec (FWHM) is ∼2.6 arcmin
or 6 pc long at the distance of the GC and has a spectrum that can be
characterized by a power law or an optically-thin thermal plasma with
temperature ≳ 3 keV. The X-ray-emitting material is likely confined
within a strand of magnetic field with its strength ≳ 1 mG, not unusual
in such radio filaments. These morphological and spectral properties of
the radio/X-ray association suggest that magnetic field re-connection is
the energy source. Such re-connection events are probably common when
flux tubes of antiparallel magnetic fields collide and/or become twisted
in and around the diffuse X-ray plumes, representing blowout
superbubbles driven by young massive stellar clusters in the GC. The
understanding of the process, theoretically predicted in analog to solar
flares, can have strong implications for the study of interstellar hot
plasma heating, cosmic ray acceleration and turbulence.
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