Chandra sample of nearby relaxed galaxy clusters: mass, gas fraction, and mass-temperature relation

Abstract

We present gas and total mass profiles for 13 low-redshift, relaxed clusters spanning a temperature range 0.7-9 keV, derived from all available Chandra data of sufficient quality. In all clusters, gas temperature profiles are measured to large radii (Vikhlinin et al.) so that direct hydrostatic mass estimates are possible to nearly r_500 or beyond. The gas density was accurately traced to larger radii; its profile is not described well by a beta-model, showing continuous steepening with radius. The derived rho_tot profiles and their scaling with mass generally follow the Navarro-Frenk-White model with concentration expected for dark matter halos in LambdaCDM cosmology. In the inner region (r<0.1r_500), the gas density and temperature profiles exhibit significant scatter and trends with mass, but they become nearly self-similar at larger radii. Correspondingly, we find that the slope of the mass-temperature relation for these relaxed clusters is in good agreement with the simple self-similar behavior, M_500 ~ T^alpha, where alpha=(1.5-1.6)+-0.1, if the gas temperatures are measured excluding the central cool cores. The normalization of this M-T relation is significantly, by =~ 30%, higher than most previous X-ray determinations. We derive accurate gas mass fraction profiles, which show increase both with radius and cluster mass. The enclosed f_gas profiles within r_2500 =~ 0.4 r_500 have not yet reached any asymptotic value and are still far (by a factor of 1.5-2) from the Universal baryon fraction according to the CMB observations. The f_gas trends become weaker and its values closer to Universal at larger radii, in particular, in spherical shells r_2500<r<r_500.