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X‐ray lobes of W 50/SS 433 system
Author(s) -
Namiki M.,
Kawai N.,
Kotani T.,
Yamauchi S.,
Brinkmann W.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
astronomische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-3994
pISSN - 0004-6337
DOI - 10.1002/1521-3994(199908)320:4/5<326::aid-asna326>3.0.co;2-w
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , surface brightness , spectral line , x ray , electron , brightness , synchrotron , magnetic field , emission spectrum , astronomy , optics , galaxy , nuclear physics , quantum mechanics
The X‐ray lobes lie on both sides (east and west) of SS 433, and are presumably produced by the interaction of the jets of SS 433 with the surrounding SNR W 50. The non‐thermal nature of the east lobe has been reported by Yamauchi et al. (1994) using ASCA data. With the further ASCA observations, we studied the spectra and morphology of both the east and west lobes in detail. Their spectra have no emission lines, and are well described by power‐law models with interstellar absorption. The X‐ray emission becomes softer on both sides with increasing distance from SS 433. The X‐ray surface brightness peaks closer to SS 433 in the high‐energy band than in the low energy band, suggesting that the high energy electrons in the X‐ray lobes lose energies by synchrotron emission as the travel away from SS 433. We estimate the magnetic field and the total energy of the high energy electrons to be ∼2 μ G and ∼5 × 10 46 erg, respectively.