Spatial Distributions of A3558 in the Core Region of the Shapley Supercluster

Abstract

The core region is dominated by three rich Abell clusters and two poor clusters. Their spatial distributions of gas temperature and metal abundance provide us with information on the interactions and motions of member clusters. From eight ASCA pointing observations, temperature, abundance, and X-ray luminosity for five member clusters are similar to the other field clusters not belonging to superclusters. This result and the mean gravitational mass density of the core region indicate that the members are growing in the same way as the nonmember clusters, and the core of the supercluster is just on the way to contraction. Based on analyses of detailed spatial structures with a 4'x4' scale, the three Abell clusters show asymmetric temperature distributions. A3558 was analyzed with a 2'x2' scale, owing to the statistical advantage, and it was revealed that A3558 has clear asymmetric distributions of gas temperature and X-ray surface brightness. This is thought to be caused by cluster-cluster mergings and/or group infallings. A metal-rich region with the size of ~320 kpc was also found to the southeast, ~12' away from the cluster center of A3558. It is expected that either a remnant of a merged core has been left after a major merging or a group of galaxies has been recently infalling.