The peculiar small-scale X-ray morphology of NGC 5846 observed with Chandra
Abstract
The excellent quality of the Chandra observation of NGC 5846 reveals a complex X-ray morphology of the central regions of this galaxy. An intriguing morphological similarity between the X-ray and the optical line emission, discovered before using ROSAT HRI images (Trinchieri, Noris & Di Serego Alighieri 1997), is confirmed here in unprecedented detail. Complex spectral characteristics are associated with the morphological peculiarities, indicating a possibly turbulent gas in this object. A population of ~ 40 individual sources is also observed, with Lx in the range ~ 3 x 10**{38}- 2 x 10**{39} erg/sec, with an X-ray luminosity function that is steeper in the high-luminosity end than in other early-type galaxies.