The Dark Matter Distribution in Galaxy Cluster Cores

Abstract

Galaxy cluster mass distributions offer an important test of the cold dark matter picture of structure formation, and may even contain clues about the nature of dark matter. X-ray imaging spectroscopy of relaxed systems can map cluster dark matter distributions, but are usually complicated by the presence of central cool components in the intracluster medium. Here we describe a statistically correct approach to distinguishing amongst simple alternative models of the cool component, and apply it to one cluster. We also present mass profiles and central density slopes for five clusters derived from Chandra data, and illustrate how assumptions about the cool component affect the resulting mass profiles. For four of these objects, we find that the central density profile (r < 200 h_50^-1 kpc) rho(r) = r^a with -2 < a < -1, for either of two models of the central cool component. These results are consistent with standard CDM predictions.