We present the results of a 100 ks Chandra observation of the NGC 404 nuclear region .
The long exposure and excellent spatial resolution of Chandra has enabled us to critically examine the nuclear environment of NGC 404 , which is known to host a nuclear star cluster and potentially an intermediate-mass black hole ( on the order of a few times 10 ^ { 5 } M _ { \odot } ) .
We find two distinct X-ray sources : a hard , central point source coincident with the optical and radio centers of the galaxy , and a soft extended region that is coincident with areas of high H \alpha emission and likely recent star formation .
When we fit the 0.3-8 keV spectra of each region separately , we find the hard nuclear point source to be dominated by a power law ( \Gamma = 1.88 ) , while the soft off-nuclear region is best fit by a thermal plasma model ( kT = 0.67 keV ) .
We therefore find evidence for both a power law component and hot gas in the nuclear region of NGC 404 .
We estimate the 2-10 keV luminosity to be 1.3 ^ { +0.8 } _ { -0.5 } \times 10 ^ { 37 } erg s ^ { -1 } .
A low level of diffuse X-ray emission was detected out to \sim 15 ^ { \prime \prime } ( \sim 0.2 kpc ) from the nucleus .
We compare our results to the observed relationships between power law photon index and Eddington ratio for both X-ray binaries and low luminosity active galaxies and find NGC 404 to be consistent with other low luminosity active galaxies .
We therefore favor the conclusion that NGC 404 harbors an intermediate-mass black hole accreting at a very low level .