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Surrounding the Milky Way (MW) is the circumgalactic medium (CGM), an extended reservoir of hot gas that has significant implications for the evolution of the MW. We used the HaloSat all-sky survey to study the CGM's soft X-ray emission in order to better define its distribution and structure. We extend a previous HaloSat study of the southern CGM (Galactic latitude b < -30 deg) to include the northern CGM (b > 30 deg) and find evidence that at least two hot gas model components at different temperatures are required to produce the observed emission. The cooler component has a typical temperature of kT ~ 0.18 keV, while the hotter component has a typical temperature of kT ~ 0.7 keV. The emission measure in both the warm and hot components has a wide range (~ 0.005 - 0.03, ~ 0.0005 - 0.004 cm-6 pc respectively), indicating that the CGM is clumpy. A patch of relatively consistent CGM was found in the north, allowing for the CGM spectrum to be studied in finer detail using a stacked spectrum. The stacked spectrum is well described with a model including two hot gas components at temperatures of kT = 0.166 +/- 0.005 keV and kT = 0.69 +0.04 -0.05 keV. As an alternative to adding a hot component, a neon-enhanced single-temperature model of the CGM was also tested and found to have worse fit statistics and poor residuals., Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures

The metallicity of galactic gaseous halos provides insights into accretion and feedback of galaxies. The nearby edge-on galaxy NGC 891 has a multi-component gaseous halo and a background AGN (LQAC 035+042 003) projected 5 kpc above the disk near the minor axis. Against the UV continuum of this AGN, we detect lines from 13 ions associated with NGC 891 in new {\it HST}/COS spectra. Most of the absorption is from the warm ionized gas with $\log T=4.22\pm0.04$, $\log n_{\rm H}=-1.26\pm0.51$, and $\log N_{\rm H}=20.81\pm 0.20$. The metallicity of volatile elements (i.e., C, N, and S) is about half solar ($\rm[X/H] \approx -0.3\pm 0.3$), while Mg, Fe, and Ni show lower metallicities of $\rm[X/H]\approx-0.9$. The absorption system shows the depletion pattern seen for warm Galactic diffuse clouds, which is consistent with a mixture of ejected solar metallicity disk gases and the hot X-ray emitting halo ($Z=0.1-0.2Z_\odot$). The warm ionized gases are about 5 times more massive than the cold \ion{H}{1} emitting gases around the galactic center, which might lead to accretion with a mean rate of $10^2~M_\odot\rm~yr^{-1}$ for a period of time. We also detect low metallicity ($\approx 0.1~Z_\odot$) gases toward LQAC 035+042 003 at $110\rm~km~s^{-1}$ (a high velocity cloud) and toward another sight line (3C 66A; 108 kpc projected from NGC 891) at $30\rm~km~s^{-1}$. This low metallicity material could be the cold mode accretion from IGM or the tidal disruption of satellites in the NGC 891 halo., Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, accepted by ApJ

The hot gaseous halos of galaxies likely contain a large amount of mass and are an integral part of galaxy formation and evolution. The Milky Way has a 2e6 K halo that is detected in emission and by absorption in the OVII resonance line against bright background AGNs, and for which the best current model is an extended spherical distribution. Using XMM-Newton RGS data, we measure the Doppler shifts of the OVII absorption-line centroids toward an ensemble of AGNs. These Doppler shifts constrain the dynamics of the hot halo, ruling out a stationary halo at about 3sigma and a corotating halo at 2sigma, and leading to a best-fit rotational velocity of 183+/-41 km/s for an extended halo model. These results suggest that the hot gas rotates and that it contains an amount of angular momentum comparable to that in the stellar disk. We examined the possibility of a model with a kinematically distinct disk and spherical halo. To be consistent with the emission-line X-ray data the disk must contribute less than 10% of the column density, implying that the Doppler shifts probe motion in the extended hot halo., Comment: Accepted for publication in the ApJ

Detections of $z \approx$ 0 oxygen absorption and emission lines indicate the Milky Way hosts a hot ($\sim 10^6$ K), low-density plasma extending $\gtrsim$50 kpc into the Mily Way's halo. Current X-ray telescopes cannot resolve the line profiles, but the variation of their strengths on the sky constrains the radial gas distribution. Interpreting the OVII K$\alpha$ absorption line strengths has several complications, including optical depth and line of sight velocity effects. Here, we present model absorption line profiles accounting for both of these effects to show the lines can exhibit asymmetric structures and be broader than the intrinsic Doppler width. The line profiles encode the hot gas rotation curve, the net inflow or outflow of hot gas, and the hot gas angular momentum profile. We show how line of sight velocity effects impact the conversion between equivalent width and the column density, and provide modified curves of growth accounting for these effects. As an example, we analyze the LMC sight line pulsar dispersion measure and OVII equivalent width to show the average gas metallicity is $\gtrsim 0.6 Z_{\odot}$ and $b$ $\gtrsim$ 100 km s$^{-1}$. Determining these properties offers valuable insights into the dynamical state of the Milky Way's hot gas, and improves the line strength interpretation. We discuss future strategies to observe these effects with an instrument that has a spectral resolution of about 3000, a goal that is technically possible today., Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, accepted to ApJ

NGC 891 is a nearby edge-on galaxy that is similar to the Milky Way and has a hot X-ray emitting halo that could arise from accretion, a galactic fountain, or a combination of the two. The metallicity of the gas can help distinguish between these models, and here we report on results that use 138 ks of archival Chandra data and 92 ks of new XMM-Newton data to measure the temperature and metallicity of the hot halo of the galaxy. We find good fits for a thermal model with kT ~ 0.2 keV and Z ~ 0.1 solar, and rule out solar metallicity to more than 99% confidence. This result suggests accretion from the intergalactic medium as the origin for the hot halo. However, it is also possible to fit a two-temperature thermal model with solar metallicity where kT_1 = 0.1 keV and kT_2 = 0.25 keV. A consideration of the cooling rate and scale height prefers the single-temperature model. We also find that the cooling rate in the hot gas cannot explain the massive HI halo in the steady state. In addition, a galactic fountain model cannot eject enough mass to account for the HI halo, and we speculate that the neutral halo may be gas from a prior outflow that has since cooled., Comment: 25 pages, 15 figures, accepted by ApJ

We report the discovery of a new candidate ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in the nearby edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 891. The source, which has an absorbed flux of F_X ~ 10^-12 erg/s/cm^2 (corresponding to L_X > 10^40 erg/s at 9 Mpc), must have begun its outburst in the past 5 years as it is not detected in prior X-ray observations between 1986 and 2006. We try empirical fits to the XMM-Newton spectrum, finding that the spectrum is fit very well as emission from a hot disk, a cool irradiated disk, or blurred reflection from the innermost region of the disk. The simplest physically motivated model with an excellent fit is a hot disk around a stellar-mass black hole (a super-Eddington outburst), but equally good fits are found for each model. We suggest several follow-up experiments that could falsify these models., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted to ApJ Letters

We present three-dimensional hydrodynamic models of radio galaxies interacting with initially relaxed hot atmospheres and explore the significant off-axis radio lobe structures which result under certain conditions. With a focus on the "winged" and "X-shaped" radio galaxy population, we confirm the importance of observed trends such as the connection of wing formation with jets co-aligned with the major axis of the surrounding atmosphere. These wings are formed substantially by the deflection of lobe plasma flowing back from the hot spots (backflow) and develop in two stages: supersonic expansion of an overpressured cocoon at early times followed by buoyant expansion at later times. We explore a limited parameter space of jet and atmosphere properties and find that the most prominent wings are produced when a decaying jet is injected into a small, dense, highly elliptical atmosphere. On the basis of this search, we argue that the deflection of backflow by gradients in the hot atmosphere is a strong candidate for forming observed wings but must work in tandem with some other mechanism for forming the initial wing channels. Our models indicate that lobe interaction with the hot atmosphere may play a dominant role in shaping the morphology of radio galaxies., Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures in emulateapj form. Accepted for publication in the ApJ

Although rapid reorientation of a black hole spin axis (lasting less than a few Myr) has been suggested as a mechanism for the formation of wings in X-shaped radio galaxies (XRGs), to date no convincing case of reorientation has been found in any XRG. Alternative wing formation models such as the hydrodynamic backflow models are supported by observed trends indicating that XRGs form preferentially with jets aligned along the major axis of the surrounding medium and wings along the minor axis. In this Letter, we present a deep Chandra observation of 4C +00.58, an oddball XRG with its jet oriented along the minor axis. By using the X-ray data in tandem with available radio and optical data, we estimate relevant timescales with which to evaluate wing formation models. The hydrodynamic models have difficulty explaining the long wings, whereas the presence of X-ray cavities (suggesting jet activity along a prior axis) and a potential stellar shell (indicating a recent merger) favor a merger-induced reorientation model., Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, accepted by ApJL