Hot Gas Halos in Field Ellipticals

Recent Chandra and XMMNewton observations show that a large fraction ofearlytype galaxies in groups and clusters retain hot gas halos. However, theproperties of these halos are consistent with the idea that the amount of hotgas has been reduced by environmental effects like rampressure stripping andevaporation in some cases. To quantify the importance of such mechanisms, weneed to compare the properties of ellipticals in rich environments to those inthe field where these mechanisms are not expected to be important. Manyopticallyluminous field galaxies have now been observed with Chandra.XMMNewton observations are needed to extend the study of the hot gas content offield galaxies to lower luminosity systems. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]