Speaker
Description
Elliptical galaxies, especially those lacking an actively accreting supermassive black hole dominating the X-ray emission, tend to be located outside our immediate local neighbourhood, and should present an area of significant gain by the eROSITA survey. We highlight some of the science that is feasible with detailed studies of early-type galaxies via presentation of preliminary results from recent contemporaneous Chandra and NuSTAR observations of the nearest giant elliptical galaxy Maffei 1 (3.4 Mpc), the dominant member of the Maffei group of galaxies. We study the dynamical evolution of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) by probing evidence for an excess population at large galactocentric radii. Such studies provide interesting constraints on supernova kicks. We investigate the origin of the excess of LMXBs at large galactocentric radii by using multiwavelength data to separate LMXBs into globular cluster and field sources. Using NuSTAR’s E>10 keV sensitivity we classify LMXB compact object types (separating neutron stars from black holes). We discuss the results in the context of supernova-kicked sources and the characteristics of the distribution of black holes and neutron stars among the LMXB population.