Chemical Enrichment of the Complex Hot ISM of the Antennae Galaxies. I. Spatial and Spectral Analysis of the Diffuse X-Ray Emission

We present an analysis of the properties of the hot interstellar medium (ISM) in the merging pair of galaxies known as the Antennae (NGC 4038/4039), performed using the deep, co-added ~411 ks Chandra ACIS-S data set. These deep X-ray observations and Chandra's high angular resolution allow us to investigate the properties of the hot ISM with unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution. Through a spatially resolved spectral analysis, we find a variety of temperatures (from 0.2 to 0.7 keV) and NH (from Galactic to 2 × 1021 cm-2). Metal abundances for Ne, Mg, Si, and Fe vary dramatically throughout the ISM from subsolar values (~0.2) up to several times solar.