ROSAT-HRI investigation of the NGC 507 X-ray halo

We present an X-ray investigation of the elliptical galaxy NGC 507. We make use of archival Rosat HRI, PSPC and Chandra data, to connect the large-scale structure of the halo to the core morphology. Our analysis shows that the halo core (r<2-3 r_e) and the external halo (r>3 r_e) are characterised by different dynamical properties and suggests a different origin of the two components. The halo core has a complex morphology with a main X-ray emission peak, coincident with the center of the optical galaxy, and several secondary peaks. The spatial and spectral analysis of the central peak shows that this feature is produced by denser hot gas in the galaxy core. Our data support the scena…