Detection of extended X-ray emission around the PeVatron microquasar V4641 Sgr with XRISM

A recent report on the detection of very-high-energy gamma rays from V4641 Sagittarii (V4641 Sgr) up to ~0.8 peta-electronvolt has made it the second confirmed "PeVatron" microquasar. Here we report on the observation of V4641 Sgr with X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) in September 2024. Thanks to the large field of view and low background, the CCD imager Xtend successfully detected for the first time X-ray extended emission around V4641 Sgr with a significance of > 4.5 sigma and > 10 sigma based on our imaging and spectral analysis, respectively. The spatial extent is estimated to have a radius of \(7 \pm 3\) arcmin (\(13 \pm 5\) pc at a distance of 6.2 kpc) assuming a Gaussian-like radial distribution, which suggests that the particle acceleration site is within ~10 pc of the microquasar. If the X-ray morphology traces the diffusion of accelerated electrons, this spatial extent can be explained by either an enhanced magnetic field (~80 uG) or a suppressed diffusion coefficient (~\(10^{27}\) cm\(^2\) s\(^{-1}\) at 100 TeV). The integrated X-ray flux, (4-6)\(\times 10^{-12}\) erg s\(^{-1}\) cm\(^{-2}\) (2-10 keV), would require a magnetic field strength higher than the galactic mean (> 8 uG) if the diffuse X-ray emission originates from synchrotron radiation and the gamma-ray emission is predominantly hadronic. If the X-rays are of thermal origin, the measured extension, temperature, and plasma density can be explained by a jet with a luminosity of ~\(2\times 10^{39}\) erg s\(^{-1}\), which is comparable to the Eddington luminosity of this system.