Chandra observations of NGC2903 central regions

The inferred terminal velocity for this hard component, ~1100km/s, exceeds the local galaxy escape velocity suggesting a potential outflow into the halo and possibly escape from the galaxy gravitational potential. Morphologically, the softer extended emission from nearby regions does not display an obvious outflow geometry. However, the column density through which the X-rays are transmitted is lower in the zone to the west of the nucleus compared to that from the east and the surface brightness is relatively higher suggesting some of the soft hot gas originates from above the disk: viewed directly from the western zone but through the intervening disk of the host galaxy along sight lines from the eastern zone.

There are several point-like sources embedded in the strong diffuse nuclear emission zone. Their X-ray spectra show them to likely be compact binaries. None of these detected point sources are coincident with the mass center of the galaxy and we place an upper limit luminosity from any point-like nuclear source to be <2x10^38^erg/s in the 0.5-8.0keV band, which indicates that NGC 2903 lacks an active galactic nucleus.

Heating from the nuclear starburst and a galactic wind may be responsible for preventing cold gas from accreting onto the galactic center.