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Astron. Astrophys. 349, 88-96 (1999) 6. Summary and conclusionsWe have investigated the soft X-ray properties of a number of LINERs based on ROSAT survey and pointed PSPC and HRI observations. Luminosities range between Whereas the bulk of the X-ray emission is consistent with arising from a point source there is some extended emission seen at weak emission levels in some sources. Spectra are best described by either a powerlaw of photon index
The absence of (short-timescale) variability is consistent with the earlier suggestion that LINERs may accrete in the advection-dominated mode. Only one source (NGC 2768) seems to be slightly variable on a timescale of months. For several LINER galaxies nearby second X-ray sources are
discovered with countrates roughly one-tenth those of the target
sources. We cannot identify an obvious detector effect. If at the
distances of the galaxies, their luminosities are on the order of
several Given the spectral variety of LINERs with contributions from several emission components, future studies of both, spectra of individual objects as well as larger samples will certainly give further insight into the LINER phenomenon which provides an important link between active and `normal' galaxies. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() © European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1999 Online publication: August 25, 1999 ![]() |