The MASSIVE Survey IV.: The X-ray halos of the most massive early-type galaxies in the nearby Universe

Understand

Studies of the physical properties of local elliptical galaxies (e.g., gas temperatures, halo masses, stellar kinematics) are shedding new light on galaxy formation.

• Here we present the hot X-ray gas properties of 33 early-type systems within the MASSIVE galaxy survey sample that have archival Chandra X-ray observations.
• Through careful X-ray spectral modeling, we derive X-ray luminosities (L_X) and plasma temperatures (T_gas) for the diffuse gas components in these galaxies.
• We combine the MASSIVE sample with 41 galaxies from the ATLAS^3D survey to investigate the X-ray and optical properties of a statistically significant sample of nearby early-type galaxies across a wide-range of environments.