An Imaging and Spectral Study of Ten X-Ray Filaments around the Galactic Center

We report the detection of 10 new X-ray filaments using the data from the {\sl Chandra} X-ray satellite for the inner $6^{\mathrm{\prime }}$ ($\sim 15$ parsec) around the Galactic center (GC). All these X-ray filaments are characterized by non-thermal energy spectra, and most of them have point-like features at their heads that point inward. Fitted with the simple absorbed power-law model, the measured X-ray flux from an individual filament in the 2-10 keV band is $\sim 2.8\times10^{-14}$to$10^{-13}$ergscm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$ and the absorption-corrected X-ray luminosity is $\sim {10}^{32}-{10}^{33}$ ergs s${}^{-1}$ at a presumed distance of 8 kpc to the GC. We speculate the origin(s) of these filaments by morphologies and by comparing their X-ray images with the corresponding radio and infrared images. On the basis of combined information available, we suspect that these X-ray filaments might be pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) associated with pulsars of age ${10}^3\sim 3\times {10}^5$ yr. The fact that most of the filament tails point outward may further suggest a high velocity wind blowing away form the GC.