arXiv subjects

Kotaro Fukushima

Publications and source records attributed to Kotaro Fukushima.

32 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

Suzaku observations of outskirts of nearby clusters and groups: I. electron density and gas fraction to the virial radius

We present an analysis of Suzaku observations of 14 nearby galaxy clusters and groups (z < 0.06), extending radial coverage out to the virial radius (approximately r200). The sample spans a wide mass range, from M500 about 2x10^13 to 7x10^14 solar masses, and includes well-studied systems such as Coma, Perseus, and Virgo. We carefully modeled all background components, including the soft X-ray foregrounds (the Local Hot Bubble, Milky Way Halo, and super-virial temperature components), the cosmic X-ray background, and the non-X-ray background, and assessed their effects on the derived properties of the intracluster medium (ICM). We constructed radial profiles of emission measure, electron density, and temperature. Temperatures decrease smoothly with radius, typically dropping to about one-third to half of their peak values near r200. For relaxed clusters, the emission measure profiles outside the core regions are well described by a beta model with beta around 0.6-0.7, while groups show slightly flatter slopes of beta around 0.4-0.65. Beyond r2500, electron density profiles follow a power-law decline with a slope close to 2. At r500 and r200, the electron density and the gas mass fraction show a tight correlation with the system mass, except for three clusters with bright subclusters. In massive clusters, the gas fraction increases with radius and approaches the cosmic baryon fraction near r200. In contrast, lower-mass systems exhibit gas fractions of around 0.1 at r200. The observed mass dependence of gas fractions suggests that feedback and related processes play an increasingly important role toward the group scale, shaping the connection between baryons and dark matter halos.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2025

Stratified wind from a super-Eddington X-ray binary is slower than expected

Accretion discs in strong gravity ubiquitously produce winds, seen as blueshifted absorption lines in the X-ray band of both stellar mass X-ray binaries (black holes and neutron stars), and supermassive black holes. Some of the most powerful winds (termed Eddington winds) are expected to arise from systems where radiation pressure is sufficient to unbind material from the inner disc ($L\gtrsim L_{\rm Edd}$). These winds should be extremely fast and carry a large amount of kinetic power, which, when associated with supermassive black holes, would make them a prime contender for the feedback mechanism linking the growth of those black holes with their host galaxies. Here we show the XRISM Resolve spectrum of the Galactic neutron star X-ray binary, GX 13+1, which reveals one of the densest winds ever seen in absorption lines. This Compton-thick wind significantly attenuates the flux, making it appear faint, although it is intrinsically more luminous than usual ($L\gtrsim L_{\rm Edd}$). However, the wind is extremely slow, more consistent with the predictions of thermal-radiative winds launched by X-ray irradiation of the outer disc, than with the expected Eddington wind driven by radiation pressure from the inner disc. This puts new constraints on the origin of winds from bright accretion flows in binaries, but also highlights the very different origin required for the ultrafast ($v\sim 0.3c$) winds seen in recent Resolve observations of a supermassive black hole at similarly high Eddington ratio.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

XRISM/Resolve View of Abell 2319: Turbulence, Sloshing, and ICM Dynamics

We present results from XRISM/Resolve observations of the core of the galaxy cluster Abell 2319, focusing on its kinematic properties. The intracluster medium (ICM) exhibits temperatures of approximately 8 keV across the core, with a prominent cold front and a high-temperature region ($\sim$11 keV) in the northwest. The average gas velocity in the 3 arcmin $\times$ 4 arcmin region around the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) covered by two Resolve pointings is consistent with that of the BCG to within 40 km s$^{-1}$ and we found modest average velocity dispersion of 230-250 km s$^{-1}$. On the other hand, spatially-resolved spectroscopy reveals interesting variations. A blueshift of up to $\sim$230 km s$^{-1}$ is observed around the east edge of the cold front, where the gas with the lowest specific entropy is found. The region further south inside the cold front shows only a small velocity difference from the BCG; however, its velocity dispersion is enhanced to 400 km s$^{-1}$, implying the development of turbulence. These characteristics indicate that we are observing sloshing motion with some inclination angle following BCG and that gas phases with different specific entropy participate in sloshing with their own velocities, as expected from simulations. No significant evidence for a high-redshift ICM component associated with the subcluster Abell 2319B was found in the region covered by the current Resolve pointings. These results highlight the importance of sloshing and turbulence in shaping the internal structure of Abell 2319. Further deep observations are necessary to better understand the mixing and turbulent processes within the cluster.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

XRISM Observation of the Ophiuchus Galaxy Cluster: Quiescent Velocity Structure in the Dynamically Disturbed Core

We present the high-resolution X-rayspectroscopic observations of the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster core using the XRISM satellite. Despite previous observations revealing multiple cold fronts and dynamical disturbances in the cluster core, our XRISM observations show low gas velocity dispersions of sigma_v = 115 +/- 7 km s^-1 in the inner region (~< 25 kpc) and sigma_v = 186 +/- 9 km s^-1 in the outer region (~ 25-50 kpc). The gas temperatures are kT = 5.8 +/- 0.2 keV and 8.4 +/- 0.2 keV for the inner and outer regions, respectively, with metal abundances of Z = 0.75 +/- 0.03 Z_sun (inner) and 0.44 +/- 0.02 Z_sun (outer). The measured velocity dispersions correspond to nonthermal pressure fractions of only 1.4 +/- 0.2% (inner) and 2.5 +/- 0.2% (outer), indicating highly subsonic turbulence. Our analysis of the bulk gas motion indicates that the gas in the inner region is nearly at rest relative to the central galaxy (|v_bulk| = 8 +/- 7 km s^-1), while the outer region exhibits a moderate motion of |v_bulk| = 104 +/- 7 km s^-1. Assuming the velocity dispersion arises from turbulent motions, the turbulent heating rate is ~ 40\% of the radiative cooling rate, although there is some uncertainty. This suggests that the heating and cooling of the gas are not currently balanced. The activity of the central active galactic nucleus (AGN) has apparently weakened. The sloshing motion that created the cold fronts may now be approaching a turning point at which the velocity is minimum. Alternatively, the central galaxy and the associated hot gas could be moving nearly parallel to the plane of the sky.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

XRISM Pre-Pipeline and Singularity: Container-Based Data Processing for the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission and High-Performance Computing

The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) is the seventh Japanese X-ray observatory whose development and operation are in collaboration with universities and research institutes in Japan, the United States, and Europe, including JAXA, NASA, and ESA. The telemetry data downlinked from the satellite are reduced to scientific products using pre-pipeline (PPL) and pipeline (PL) software running on standard Linux virtual machines (VMs) for the JAXA and NASA sides, respectively. OBSIDs identified the observations, and we had 80 and 161 OBSIDs to be reprocessed at the end of the commissioning period and performance verification and calibration period, respectively. The combination of the containerized PPL utilizing Singularity of a container platform running on the JAXA's "TOKI-RURI" high-performance computing (HPC) system and working disk images formatted to ext3 accomplished a 33x speedup in PPL tasks over our regular VM. Herein, we briefly describe the data processing in XRISM and our porting strategies for PPL in the HPC environment.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2025

Verification of the Timing System for the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission in the GPS Unsynchronized Mode

We report the results from the ground and on-orbit verifications of the XRISM timing system when the satellite clock is not synchronized to the GPS time. In this case, the time is determined by a free-run quartz oscillator of the clock, whose frequency changes depending on its temperature. In the thermal vacuum test performed in 2022, we obtained the GPS unsynchronized mode data and the temperature-versus-clock frequency trend. Comparing the time values calculated from the data and the true GPS times when the data were obtained, we confirmed that the requirement (within a 350 $μ$s error in the absolute time, accounting for both the spacecraft bus system and the ground system) was satisfied in the temperature conditions of the thermal vacuum test. We also simulated the variation of the timing accuracy in the on-orbit temperature conditions using the Hitomi on-orbit temperature data and found that the error remained within the requirement over $\sim 3 \times 10^{5}$ s. The on-orbit tests were conducted in 2023 September and October as part of the bus system checkout. The temperature versus clock frequency trend remained unchanged from that obtained in the thermal vacuum test and the observed time drift was consistent with that expected from the trend.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2025

Constraining gas motion and non-thermal pressure beyond the core of the Abell 2029 galaxy cluster with XRISM

We report a detailed spectroscopic study of the gas dynamics and hydrostatic mass bias of the galaxy cluster Abell 2029, utilizing high-resolution observations from XRISM Resolve. Abell 2029, known for its cool core and relaxed X-ray morphology, provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the influence of gas motions beyond the central region. Expanding upon prior studies that revealed low turbulence and bulk motions within the core, our analysis covers regions out to the scale radius $R_{2500}$ (670~kpc) based on three radial pointings extending from the cluster center toward the northern side. We obtain accurate measurements of bulk and turbulent velocities along the line of sight. The results indicate that non-thermal pressure accounts for no more than 2% of the total pressure at all radii, with a gradual decrease outward. The observed radial trend differs from many numerical simulations, which often predict an increase in non-thermal pressure fraction at larger radii. These findings suggest that deviations from hydrostatic equilibrium are small, leading to a hydrostatic mass bias of around 2% across the observed area.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

XRISM forecast for the Coma cluster: stormy, with a steep power spectrum

The XRISM Resolve microcalorimeter array measured the velocities of hot intracluster gas at two positions in the Coma galaxy cluster: 3'x3' squares at the center and at 6' (170 kpc) to the south. We find the line-of-sight velocity dispersions in those regions to be sigma_z=208+-12 km/s and 202+-24 km/s, respectively. The central value corresponds to a 3D Mach number of M=0.24+-0.015 and the ratio of the kinetic pressure of small-scale motions to thermal pressure in the intracluster plasma of only 3.1+-0.4%, at the lower end of predictions from cosmological simulations for merging clusters like Coma, and similar to that observed in the cool core of the relaxed cluster A2029. Meanwhile, the gas in both regions exhibits high line-of-sight velocity differences from the mean velocity of the cluster galaxies, Delta v_z=450+-15 km/s and 730+-30 km/s, respectively. A small contribution from an additional gas velocity component, consistent with the cluster optical mean, is detected along a sightline near the cluster center. The combination of the observed velocity dispersions and bulk velocities is not described by a Kolmogorov velocity power spectrum of steady-state turbulence; instead, the data imply a much steeper effective slope (i.e., relatively more power at larger linear scales). This may indicate either a very large dissipation scale resulting in the suppression of small-scale motions, or a transient dynamic state of the cluster, where large-scale gas flows generated by an ongoing merger have not yet cascaded down to small scales.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Development of the Timing System for the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission

This paper describes the development, design, ground verification, and in-orbit verification, performance measurement, and calibration of the timing system for the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). The scientific goals of the mission require an absolute timing accuracy of 1.0~ms. All components of the timing system were designed and verified to be within the timing error budgets, which were assigned by component to meet the requirements. After the launch of XRISM, the timing capability of the ground-tuned timing system was verified using the millisecond pulsar PSR~B1937+21 during the commissioning period, and the timing jitter of the bus and the ground component were found to be below $15~μ$s compared to the NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR) profile. During the performance verification and calibration period, simultaneous observations of the Crab pulsar by XRISM, NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array), and NICER were made to measure the absolute timing offset of the system, showing that the arrival time of the main pulse with XRISM was aligned with that of NICER and NuSTAR to within $200~μ$s. In conclusion, the absolute timing accuracy of the bus and the ground component of the XRISM timing system meets the timing error budget of $500~μ$s.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2023

The soft X-ray background with Suzaku II: Supervirial temperature bubbles?

Observations of the hot X-ray emitting interstellar medium in the Milky Way are important for studying the stellar feedback and understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies. We present measurements of the soft X-ray background emission for 130 Suzaku observations at $75^\circ 15^\circ$. With the standard soft X-ray background model consisting of the local hot bubble and the Milky Way halo, residual structures remain at 0.7--1 keV in the spectra of some regions. Adding a collisional-ionization-equilibrium component with a temperature of $\sim$0.8 keV, much higher than the virial temperature of the Milky Way, significantly reduces the derived C-statistic for 56 out of 130 observations. The emission measure of the 0.8 keV component varies by more than an order of magnitude: Assuming the solar abundance, the median value is 3$\times 10^{-4}~ \rm{cm^{-6} pc}$ and the 16th-84th percentile range is (1--8)$\times 10^{-4}~ \rm{cm^{-6} pc}$. Regions toward the Orion-Eridanus Superbubble, a large cavity extending from the Ori OB1 association, have the highest emission measures of the 0.8 keV component. While the scatter is large, the emission measures tend to be higher toward the lower Galactic latitude. We discuss possible biases caused by the solar wind charge exchange, stars, and background groups. The 0.8 keV component is probably heated by supernovae in the Milky Way disk, possibly related to galactic fountains.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

O, Ne, Mg, and Fe Abundances in Hot X-Ray-emitting Halos of Galaxy Clusters, Groups, and Giant Early-type Galaxies with XMM-Newton RGS Spectroscopy

Chemical elements in the hot medium permeating early-type galaxies, groups, and clusters make them an excellent laboratory for studying metal enrichment and cycling processes in the largest scales of the universe. Here, we report the analysis by the XMM-Newton Reflection Grating Spectrometer of 14 early-type galaxies, including the well-known brightest cluster galaxies of Perseus, for instance. The spatial distribution of the O/Fe, Ne/Fe, and Mg/Fe ratios is generally flat at the central 60 arcsecond regions of each object, irrespective of whether or not a central Fe abundance drop has been reported. Common profiles between noble gas and normal metal suggest that the dust depletion process does not work predominantly in these systems. Therefore, observed abundance drops are possibly attributed to other origins, like systematics in the atomic codes. Giant systems of high gas mass-to-luminosity ratio tend to hold a hot gas ($\sim$ 2 keV) yielding the solar N/Fe, O/Fe, Ne/Fe, Mg/Fe, and Ni/Fe ratios. Contrarily, light systems at a subkiloelectronvolt temperature regime, including isolated or group-centered galaxies, generally exhibit super-solar N/Fe, Ni/Fe, Ne/O, and Mg/O ratios. We find that the latest supernova nucleosynthesis models fail to reproduce such a super-solar abundance pattern. Possible systematic uncertainties contributing to these high abundance ratios of cool objects are also discussed in tandem with the crucial role of future X-ray missions.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2022

The soft X-ray background with Suzaku: I. Milky Way halo

We present measurements of the soft X-ray background emission for 130 Suzaku observations at $75^\circ 15^\circ$ obtained from 2005 to 2015, covering nearly one solar cycle. In addition to the standard soft X-ray background model consisting of the local hot bubble and the Milky Way Halo (MWH), we include a hot collisional-ionization-equilibrium component with a temperature of $\sim 0.8$ keV to reproduce spectra of a significant fraction of the lines of sight. Then, the scatter in the relation between the emission measure vs. temperature of the MWH component is reduced. Here, we exclude time ranges with high count rates to minimize the effect of the solar wind charge exchange (SWCX). However, the spectra of almost the same lines of sight are inconsistent. The heliospheric SWCX emissions likely contaminate and gives a bias in measurements of temperature and the emission measure of the MWH. Excluding the data around the solar maximum and using the data taken before the end of 2009, at $|b|>35^\circ$ and $105^\circ<l<255^\circ$, the temperature (0.22 keV) and emission measure ($2\times 10^{-3}~\rm{cm^{-6}pc}$) of the MWH are fairly uniform. The increase of the emission measure toward the lower Galactic latitude at $|b|<35^\circ$ indicates a presence of a disk-like morphology component. A composite model which consists of disk-like and spherical-morphology components also reproduces the observed emission measure distribution of MWH. In this case, the hydrostatic mass at a few tens of kpc from the Galactic center agrees with the gravitational mass of the Milky Way. The plasma with the virial temperature likely fills the Milky Way halo in nearly hydrostatic equilibrium. Assuming the gas metallicity of 0.3 solar, the upper limit of the gas mass of the spherical component out to 250 kpc, or the virial radius, is $\sim$ a few $\times 10^{10}~ M_\odot$.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2022

Chemical enrichment in the cool core of the Centaurus cluster of galaxies

Here we present results from over 500 kiloseconds Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of the cool core of the Centaurus cluster. We investigate the spatial distributions of the O, Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, and Ni abundances in the intracluster medium with CCD detectors, and those of N, O, Ne, Mg, Fe, and Ni with the Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS). The abundances of most of the elements show a sharp drop within the central 18 arcsec, although different detectors and atomic codes give significantly different values. The abundance ratios of the above elements, including Ne/Fe with RGS, show relatively flat radial distributions. In the innermost regions with the dominant Fe-L lines, the measurements of the absolute abundances are challenging. For example, AtomDB and SPEXACT give Fe = 0.5 and 1.4 solar, respectively, for the spectra from the innermost region. These results suggest some systematic uncertainties in the atomic data and response matrices at least partly cause the abundance drop rather than the metal depletion into the cold dust. Except for super-solar N/Fe and Ni/Fe, sub-solar Ne/Fe, and Mg/Fe, the abundance pattern agrees with the solar composition. The entire pattern is challenging to reproduce with the latest supernova nucleosynthesis models. Observed super-solar N/O and comparable Mg abundance to stellar metallicity profiles imply the mass-loss winds dominate the intracluster medium in the brightest cluster galaxy. The solar Cr/Fe and Mn/Fe ratios indicate a significant contribution of near- and sub-Chandrasekhar mass explosions of Type Ia supernovae.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2020

Element Stratification in the Middle-Aged Type Ia Supernova Remnant G344.7-0.1

Despite their importance, a detailed understanding of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) remains elusive. X-ray measurements of the element distributions in supernova remnants (SNRs) offer important clues for understanding the explosion and nucleosynthesis mechanisms for SNe Ia. However, it is challenging to observe the entire ejecta mass in X-rays for young SNRs, because the central ejecta may not have been heated by the reverse shock yet. Here we present over 200 kilosecond Chandra observations of the Type Ia SNR G344.7-0.1, whose age is old enough for the reverse shock to have reached the SNR center, providing an opportunity to investigate the distribution of the entire ejecta mass. We reveal a clear stratification of heavy elements with a centrally peaked distribution of the Fe ejecta surrounded by intermediate-mass elements (IMEs: Si, S, Ar Ca) with an arc-like structure. The centroid energy of the Fe K emission is marginally lower in the central Fe-rich region than in the outer IME-rich regions, suggesting that the Fe ejecta were shock-heated more recently. These results are consistent with the prediction for standard SN Ia models, where the heavier elements are synthesized in the interior of an exploding white dwarf. We find, however, that the peak location of the Fe K emission is slightly offset to the west with respect to the geometric center of the SNR. This apparent asymmetry is likely due to the inhomogeneous density distribution of the ambient medium, consistent with our radio observations of the ambient molecular and neutral gas.

astro-ph.HE↗