An XMM-Newton view of M101 - III. Diffuse X-ray emission

We present a study of the X-ray properties of the nearby face-on Scd spiral galaxy M101 based on recent XMM-Newton observations. In this third and final paper in the present series, we focus on the spatial and spectral properties of the residual emission, after excluding bright X-ray sources with L_X > 10³⁷ergs^-1. Within a central region of radius 10 arcmin (21 kpc), the X-ray emission broadly traces the pattern of the spiral arms, establishing a strong link with recent star formation, but it also exhibits a radial scalelength of ~2.6 arcmin (5.4 kpc) consistent with optical data. We estimate the soft X-ray luminosity within the central 5 arcmin (10.5 kpc) region to be L_X ~ 2.1 × 10³⁹ergs^-1 (0.5-2 keV), the bulk of which appears to originate as diffuse emission. We find a two-temperature thermal model best fits the spectral data with derived temperatures of 0.20^+0.01_-0.01 and 0.68^+0.06_-0.04 keV which are very typical of the diffuse components seen in other normal and starburst galaxies. More detailed investigation of the X-ray morphology reveals a strong correlation with images recorded in the far-ultraviolet through to V band, with the best match being with the U band. We interpret these results in terms of a clumpy thin-disc component which traces the spiral arms of M101 plus an extended lower halo component with large filling factor.