Impact of supernova and cosmic-ray driving on the surface brightness of the galactic halo in soft X-rays

TL;DR

This study uses advanced simulations to show that star formation feedback, especially supernovae and self-gravity, can explain the observed soft X-ray surface brightness of the Milky Way's halo, highlighting the complex interplay of galactic processes.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that thermal feedback, cosmic rays, and self-gravity collectively influence the hot gas in the galactic halo, providing a comprehensive model matching observations.

Findings

Thermal feedback alone can produce observed surface brightness.

Cosmic rays reduce surface brightness by driving cooler outflows.

Self-gravity significantly enhances hot gas ejection into the halo.

Abstract

The halo of the Milky Way contains a hot plasma with a surface brightness in soft X-rays of the order $10^{-12}$erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ deg$^{-2}$. The origin of this gas is unclear, but so far numerical models of galactic star formation have failed to reproduce such a large surface brightness by several orders of magnitude. In this paper, we analyze simulations of the turbulent, magnetized, multi-phase interstellar medium including thermal feedback by supernova explosions as well as cosmic-ray feedback. We include a time-dependent chemical network, self-shielding by gas and dust, and self-gravity. Pure thermal feedback alone is sufficient to produce the observed surface brightness, although it is very sensitive to the supernova rate. Cosmic rays suppress this sensitivity and reduce the surface brightness because they drive cooler outflows. Self-gravity has by far the largest effect because it accumulates the diffuse gas in the disk in dense clumps and filaments, so that supernovae exploding in voids can eject a large amount of hot gas into the halo. This can boost the surface brightness by several orders of magnitude. Although our simulations do not reach a steady state, all simulations produce surface brightness values of the same order of magnitude as the observations, with the exact value depending sensitively on the simulation parameters. We conclude that star formation feedback alone is sufficient to explain the origin of the hot halo gas, but measurements of the surface brightness alone do not provide useful diagnostics for the study of galactic star formation.