Suzaku detection of extended/diffuse hard X-ray emission from the galactic center

Five on-plane regions within ±0.°8 of the galactic center were observed with the Hard X-ray Detector (HXD) and the X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS) aboard Suzaku. From all regions, significant hard X-ray emission was detected with HXD-PIN up to 40 keV, in addition to the extended plasma emission which is dominant in the XIS band. The hard X-ray signals are inferred to come primarily from a spatially extended source, rather than from a small number of bright discrete objects. Contributions to the HXD data from catalogued X-ray sources, typically brighter than 1 mCrab, were estimated and removed using information from Suzaku and other satellites. Even after this removal, the hard X-ray signals remained significant, exhibiting a typical 12-40 keV surface brightness of 4 × 10-10 erg cm-2 s-1 deg-2 and power-law-like spectra with a photon index of 1.8. Combined fittings to the XIS and HXD-PIN spectra confirm that a separate hard tail component is superposed onto the hot thermal emission, confirming a previous report based on the XIS data. Over the 5-40 keV band, the hard tail is spectrally approximated by a power law of photon index ∼ 2, but better by those with somewhat convex shapes. Possible origins of the extended hard X-ray emission are discussed. © 2008. Astronomical Society of Japan.