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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Das, Sanskriti
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.09726
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Table of Contents:
  • We report the first detection of non-thermal broadening of OVII lines in the warm-hot $\approx 10^6$ K circumgalactic medium (CGM) of the Milky Way. We use $z$=0 absorption of OVII K$α$, OVII K$β$, and OVIII K$α$ lines in archival grating data of $b>$15$^\circ$ quasar sightlines from $Chandra$ and $XMM$-$Newton$. Non-thermal line broadening is evident in two-third of the sightlines considered, and on average is constrained at 4.6$σ$ significance. Non-thermal line broadening dominates over thermal broadening. We extensively test whether the appearance of non-thermal line broadening could instead be because of multiple thermally broadened velocity components and robustly rule it out. Non-thermal line broadening is more evident toward sightlines at lower galactic latitude indicating the Galactic disk origin of the nonthermal sources. There is weak/no correlation between non-thermal line broadening and the angular separation of sightlines from the Galactic center, indicating that the nuclear region might not be a major source of non-thermal factors.