Charge exchange in the ultraviolet: implication for interacting clouds in the core of NGC 1275

¹ SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Sorbonnelaan 2, 3584 CA Utrecht, The Netherlands
e-mail: l.gu@sron.nl
² Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada
⁴ School of Physics and Astronomy, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623, USA
⁵ Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623, USA

Received: 10 February 2017
Accepted: 3 March 2017

Abstract

Context. Charge exchange emission is known to provide a key diagnostic to the interface between hot and cold matter in many astrophysical environments. Most of the recent charge exchange studies focus on its emission in the X-ray band; only a few focus on the UV, even though it can also provide a powerful probe of the charge exchange process.

Aims. An atomic calculation, as well as an application to observed data, are presented to explore and describe the potential use of the UV data for the study of cosmic charge exchange.

Methods. Using the newest charge exchange model in the SPEX code v3.03, we reanalyse the archival Hubble/STIS data of the central region of NGC 1275.

Results. The NGC 1275 spectrum shows hints of three possible weak lines at about 1223.6 Å, 1242.4 Å, and 1244.0 Å, each with a significance of about 2 − 3σ. The putative features are best explained by charge exchange between highly ionized hydrogen, neon, and sulfur with neutral matter. The wavelengths of the charge exchange lines are found robustly with uncertainties ≤0.3 Å. The possible charge exchange emission shows a line-of-sight velocity offset of about − 3400 km s^-1 with respect to the NGC 1275 nucleus, which resembles a previously reported Lyα absorber. This indicates that the charge exchange lines might be emitted at the same position as the absorber, which could be ascribed to outflowing gas from the nucleus.