On the origin of the $10^7$ K hot emitting gas in the Circumgalactic medium of the Milky Way

Abstract

The presence of the $\approx 10^6$ K gas in the circumgalactic medium of the Milky Way has been well established. However, the location and the origin of the newly discovered hot gas at `super-virial' temperatures of $\approx 10^7$ K have been puzzling. This hot gas has been detected in both absorption and emission; here we focus on the emitting gas only. We show that both the `virial' and the `super-virial' temperature gas as observed in \emph{emission} occupy disk-like extraplanar regions, in addition to the diffuse virial temperature gas filling the halo of the Milky Way. We perform idealized hydrodynamical simulations to show that the $\approx 10^7$ K emitting gas is likely to be produced by stellar feedback in and around the Galactic disk. We further show that the emitting gas at both super-virial and virial temperatures in the extraplanar regions is metal enriched and is not in hydrostatic equilibrium with the halo but is continuously evolving.