Abstract
We present a systematical analysis of the Chandra observations of 53 nearby highly inclined (i ≳ 60°) disc galaxies to study the coronae around them. This sample covers a broad range of galaxy properties: e.g. about three orders of magnitude in the star formation rate and more than two orders of magnitude in the stellar mass. The Chandra observations of the diffuse soft X-ray emission from 20 of these galaxies are presented for the first time. The data are reduced in a uniform manner, including the excision/subtraction of both resolved and unresolved stellar contributions. Various coronal properties, such as the scale height and luminosity, are characterized for all the sample galaxies. For galaxies with high enough counting statistics, we also examine the thermal and chemical states of the coronal gas. We note on galaxies with distinct multiwavelength characteristics which may affect the coronal properties. The uniformly processed images, spectra and brightness profiles, as well as the inferred hot gas parameters, form a large X-ray data base for studying the coronae around nearby disc galaxies. We also discuss various complications which may cause biases to this data base and their possible corrections or effects, such as the uncertainty in the thermal and chemical states of hot gas, the different galactic disc inclination angles, the presence of active galactic nuclei and the contribution of the emission from charge exchange at interfaces between hot and cool gases. Results from a detailed correlation analysis are presented in a companion paper to gain a more comprehensive statistical understanding of the origin of galactic coronae.
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