Issue |
A&A
Volume 528, April 2011
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A136 | |
Number of page(s) | 7 | |
Section | Interstellar and circumstellar matter | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201015866 | |
Published online | 15 March 2011 |
XMM-Newton observations of the superbubble in N 158 in the LMC
1
Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Universität Tübingen,
Sand 1,
72076
Tübingen,
Germany
e-mail: sasaki@astro.uni-tuebingen.de
2
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Berlin Institute of
Technology, Hardenbergstr.
36, 10623
Berlin,
Germany
3
Institut für Astronomie, Universität Wien,
Türkenschanzstr.
17, 1180
Vienna,
Austria
4
Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik,
Giessenbachstraße,
85748
Garching,
Germany
Received:
5
October
2010
Accepted:
1
February
2011
Aims. We study the diffuse X-ray emission observed in the field of view of the pulsar B 0540–69 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) by XMM-Newton. We wish to understand the nature of this soft diffuse emission, which coincides with the superbubble in the H ii region N 158, and improve our understanding of the evolution of superbubbles.
Methods. We analyse the XMM-Newton spectra of the diffuse emission. Using the parameters obtained from the spectral fit, we perform calculations of the evolution of the superbubble. The mass loss and energy input rates are based on the initial mass function (IMF) of the observed OB association inside the superbubble.
Results. The analysis of the spectra shows that the soft X-ray emission arises from hot shocked gas surrounded by a thin shell of cooler, ionised gas. We show that the stellar winds alone cannot account for the energy inside the superbubble, but the energy release of 2−3 supernova explosions in the past ~1 Myr provides a possible explanation.
Conclusions. The combination of high sensitivity X-ray data, which permits a spectral analysis, and analytical models for superbubbles can provide insight into the evolutionary state of interstellar bubbles, if the stellar content is known.
Key words: shock waves / ISM: bubbles / evolution / HII regions / X-rays: ISM
© ESO, 2011
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.