Gaseous abundances in M82

Abstract

We present the preliminary analysis of a deep (100ks) XMM-Newton observation of M82. The spatial distribution of the abundances of chemical elements (Fe, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S) is investigated through narrow-band imaging analisys and spatially-resolved spectroscopy. We find that the abundances of alpha-elements follow a bipolar distribution, these elements being more abundant in the gaseous outflow than in the galaxy centre. This behaviour is found to be more marked for lighter elements (O, Ne) than for heavier elements.

LaTeX, 2 pages, 2 figures. Proceedings of the conference "The X-ray Universe 2005", held in San Lorenzo de el Escorial, September 2005