arXiv subjects

M. Markevitch

Publications and source records attributed to M. Markevitch.

86 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2000

Chandra estimate of the magnetic field strength near the cold front in A3667

We use the Chandra observation of the cold front in the intracluster gas of A3667 to estimate the magnetic field strength near the front. The front is seen in the Chandra data as a sharp discontinuity in the gas density which delineates a large body of dense cool gas moving with the near-sonic velocity through the less dense, hotter gas. Without a magnetic field, the front should be quickly disturbed by the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability arising from tangential motion of gas layers. However, Chandra image shows that the front is stable within a +-30deg sector in the direction of the cloud motion, beyond which it gradually disappears. We suggest that the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability within the +-30deg sector is suppressed by surface tension of the magnetic field whose field lines are parallel to the front. The required field strength is B ~ 10 muG. Magnetic field near the front is expected to be stronger and have very different structure compared to the bulk of the intergalactic medium, because the field lines are stretched by the tangential gas motions. Such a magnetic configuration, once formed, would effectively stop the plasma diffusion and heat conduction across the front, and may inhibit gas mixing during the subcluster merger. We note that even the increased magnetic field near the front contributes only 10-20% to the total gas pressure, and therefore magnetic pressure is unimportant for hydrostatic cluster mass estimates.

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arXiv2000

Chandra X-ray Observations of the Hydra A Cluster: An Interaction Between the Radio Source and the X-Ray-Emitting Gas

We present Chandra X-ray Observations of the Hydra A cluster of galaxies, and we report the discovery of structure in the central 80 kpc of the cluster's X-ray-emitting gas. The most remarkable structures are depressions in the X-ray surface brightness, $\sim 25-35$ kpc diameter, that are coincident with Hydra A's radio lobes. The depressions are nearly devoid of X-ray-emitting gas, and there is no evidence for shock-heated gas surrounding the radio lobes. We suggest the gas within the surface brightness depressions was displaced as the radio lobes expanded subsonically, leaving cavities in the hot atmosphere. The gas temperature declines from 4 keV at 70 kpc to 3 keV in the inner 20 kpc of the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG), and the cooling time of the gas is $\sim 600$ Myr in the inner 10 kpc. These properties are consistent with the presence of a $\sim 34 \msunyr$ cooling flow within a 70 kpc radius. Bright X-ray emission is present in the BCG surrounding a recently-accreted disk of nebular emission and young stars. The star formation rate is commensurate with the cooling rate of the hot gas within the volume of the disk, although the sink for the material cooling at larger radii remains elusive.

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arXiv2000

Chandra Observation of Abell 2142: Survival of Dense Subcluster Cores in a Merger

We use Chandra data to map the gas temperature in the central region of the merging cluster A2142. The cluster is markedly nonisothermal; it appears that the central cooling flow has been disturbed but not destroyed by a merger. The X-ray image exhibits two sharp, bow-shaped, shock-like surface brightness edges or gas density discontinuities. However, temperature and pressure profiles across these edges indicate that these are not shock fronts. The pressure is reasonably continuous across these edges, while the entropy jumps in the opposite sense to that in a shock (i.e. the denser side of the edge has lower temperature, and hence lower entropy). Most plausibly, these edges delineate the dense subcluster cores that have survived a merger and ram pressure stripping by the surrounding shock-heated gas.

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arXiv2000

X-ray total mass estimate for the nearby relaxed cluster A3571

We constrain the total mass distribution in the cluster A3571, combining spatially resolved ASCA temperature data with ROSAT imaging data with the assumption that the cluster is in hydrostatic equilibrium. The total mass within r_500 (1.7/h_50 Mpc) is M_500 = 7.8[+1.4,-2.2] 10^14/ h_50 Msun at 90% confidence, 1.1 times smaller than the isothermal estimate. The Navarro, Frenk & White ``universal profile'' is a good description of the dark matter density distribution in A3571. The gas density profile is shallower than the dark matter profile, scaling as r^{-2.1} at large radii, leading to a monotonically increasing gas mass fraction with radius. Within r_500 the gas mass fraction reaches a value of f_gas = 0.19[+0.06,-0.03] h_50^{-3/2} (90% confidence errors). Assuming that this value of f_gas is a lower limit for the the universal value of the baryon fraction, we estimate the 90% confidence upper limit of the cosmological matter density to be Omega_m < 0.4.

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arXiv1999

Chandra X-Ray Detection of the Radio Hotspots of 3C295

An observation of the radio galaxy 3C295 during the calibration phase of the Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals X-ray emission from the core of the galaxy, from each of the two prominent radio hotspots, and from the previously known cluster gas. We discuss the possible emission processes for the hotspots and argue that a synchrotron self-Compton model is preferred for most or all of the observed X-ray emission. SSC models with near equipartition fields thus explain the X-ray emission from the hotspots in the two highest surface brightness FRII radio galaxies, Cygnus A and 3C295. This lends weight to the assumption of equipartition and suggests that relativistic protons do not dominate the particle energy density.

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arXiv1999

The cluster M-T relation from temperature profiles observed with ASCA and ROSAT

We calibrate the galaxy cluster mass - temperature relation using the temperature profiles of intracluster gas observed with ASCA (for hot clusters) and ROSAT (for cool groups). Our sample consists of apparently relaxed clusters for which the total masses are derived assuming hydrostatic equilibrium. The sample provides data on cluster X-ray emission-weighted cooling flow-corrected temperatures and total masses up to r_1000. The resulting M-T scaling in the 1-10 keV temperature range is M_1000 = (1.23 +- 0.20)/h_50 10^15 Msun (T/10 keV)^{1.79 +- 0.14} with 90% confidence errors, or significantly (99.99% confidence) steeper than the self-similar relation M propto T^{3/2}. For any given temperature, our measured mass values are significantly smaller compared to the simulation results of Evrard et al. (1996) that are frequently used for mass-temperature scaling. The higher-temperature subsample (kT > 4 keV) is consistent with M propto T^{3/2}, allowing the possibility that the self-similar scaling breaks down at low temperatures, perhaps due to heating by supernovae that is more important for low-temperature groups and galaxies as suggested by earlier works.

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arXiv1999

The Baryonic and Dark Matter Distributions in Abell 401

We combine spatially resolved ASCA temperature data with ROSAT imaging data to constrain the total mass distribution in the cluster A401, assuming that the cluster is in hydrostatic equilibrium. We obtain a total mass within the X-ray core (290/h_50 kpc) of 1.2[+0.1,-0.5] 10^14 /h_50 Msun at the 90% confidence level, 1.3 times larger than the isothermal estimate. The total mass within r_500 (1.7/h_50 Mpc) is M_500 = 0.9[+0.3,-0.2] 10^15/ h_50 Msun at 90% confidence, in agreement with the optical virial mass estimate, and 1.2 times smaller than the isothermal estimate. Our M_500 value is 1.7 times smaller than that estimated using the mass-temperature scaling law predicted by simulations. The best fit dark matter density profile scales as r^{-3.1} at large radii, which is consistent with the Navarro, Frenk & White (NFW) ``universal profile'' as well as the King profile of the galaxy density in A401. From the imaging data, the gas density profile is shallower than the dark matter profile, scaling as r^{-2.1} at large radii, leading to a monotonically increasing gas mass fraction with radius. Within r_500 the gas mass fraction reaches a value of f_gas = 0.21[+0.06,-0.05] h_50^{-3/2} (90% confidence errors). Assuming that f_gas (plus an estimate of the stellar mass) is the universal value of the baryon fraction, we estimate the 90% confidence upper limit of the cosmological matter density to be Omega_m < 0.31.

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arXiv1999

Physics of the Merging Clusters Cygnus A, A3667, and A2065

We present ASCA gas temperature maps of the nearby merging galaxy clusters Cygnus A, A3667, and A2065. Cygnus A appears to have a particularly simple merger geometry that allows an estimate of the subcluster collision velocity from the observed temperature variations. We estimate it to be ~2000 km/s. Interestingly, this is similar to the free-fall velocity that the two Cygnus A subclusters should have achieved at the observed separation, suggesting that merger has been effective in dissipating the kinetic energy of gas halos into thermal energy, without channeling its major fraction elsewhere (e.g., into turbulence). In A3667, we may be observing a spatial lag between the shock front seen in the X-ray image and the corresponding rise of the electron temperature. A lag of the order of hundreds of kiloparsecs is possible due to the combination of thermal conduction and a finite electron-ion equilibration time. Forthcoming better spatial resolution data will allow a direct measurement of these phenomena using such lags. A2065 has gas density peaks coincident with two central galaxies. A merger with the collision velocity estimated from the temperature map should have swept away such peaks if the subcluster total mass distributions had flat cores in the centers. The fact that the peaks have survived (or quickly reemerged) suggests that the gravitational potential also is strongly peaked. Finally, the observed specific entropy variations in A3667 and Cygnus A indicate that energy injection from a single major merger may be of the order of the full thermal energy of the gas. We hope that these order of magnitude estimates will encourage further work on hydrodynamic simulations, as well as more quantitative representation of the simulation results.

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arXiv1999

Mass Profiles of the Typical Relaxed Galaxy Clusters A2199 and A496

We present maps and radial profiles of the gas temperature in the nearby galaxy clusters A2199 and A496, which have the most accurate ASCA spectral data for all hot clusters. These clusters are relaxed and can provide reliable X-ray mass measurements under the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium. The cluster average temperatures corrected for the presence of cooling flows are 4.8+-0.2 keV and 4.7+-0.2 keV (90% errors), respectively. Outside the central cooling flow regions, the radial temperature profiles are similar to those of the majority of nearby relaxed clusters. They are accurately described by polytropic models with gamma=1.17+-0.07 for A2199 and gamma=1.24+-0.09 for A496. We use these polytropic models to derive accurate total mass profiles. Within r=0.5/h Mpc, which corresponds to a radius of overdensity 1000, the total mass values are 1.45+-0.15 10^14 /h Msun and 1.55+-0.15 10^14 /h Msun. These values are 10% lower than those obtained assuming constant temperature. The values inside a gas core radius (0.07-0.13/h Mpc) are a factor of >1.5 higher than the isothermal values. The gas mass fraction increases with radius (by a factor of 3 between the X-ray core radius and r_1000) and at r_1000 reaches values of 0.057+-0.005 and 0.056+-0.006 h^-3/2 for the two clusters, respectively. Our mass profiles within r_1000 are remarkably well approximated by the NFW "universal" profile. Since A2199 and A496 are typical relaxed clusters, the above findings should be relevant for most such systems. In particular, the similarity of the temperature profiles in nearby clusters appears to reflect the underlying "universal" dark matter profile. The upward revision of mass at small radii will resolve most of the discrepancy between the X-ray and strong lensing mass estimates. (Abridged)

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arXiv1998

A Hot Spot in Coma

We study the temperature structure of the central part (r<18' ~0.7 h50**-1 Mpc) of the Coma cluster of galaxies using ASCA data. Two different analysis methods produce results in good agreement with each other and reveal the presence of interesting structures in the gas temperature distribution. Globally, the average temperature in the center of the cluster is 9.0 +/- 0.6 keV in good agreement with previous results. Superimposed on this, we find a cool area with temperatures of 4-6 keV associated with a filament of X-ray emission extending southeast from the cluster center detected by Vikhlinin and coworkers. We also find a hot spot with a temperature of around 13 keV displaced north from the central peak of emission. The distribution of the gas temperatures and relative specific entropies suggests that the cool features are most likely gas stripped from a galaxy group centered on NGC 4874 falling toward the core from outside, while the hot spot located ``ahead'' of this in-falling gas is due to shock heating. Thus our results suggest that we are observing Coma during a minor merger with a small group of galaxies associated with NGC 4874 shortly before the initial core passage.

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arXiv1998

The Temperature Structure of 30 Nearby Clusters Observed with ASCA. Similarity of Temperature Profiles

We present ASCA temperature profiles and, when possible, crude temperature maps for a sample of bright clusters with 0.04<z<0.09. Together with several previously published clusters, the sample includes A85, A119, A399, A401, A478, A644, A754, A780, A1650, A1651, A1795, A2029, A2065, A2142, A2256, A2319, A2597, A2657, A3112, A3266, A3376, A3391, A3395, A3558, A3571, A3667, A4059, Cygnus A, MKW3S, and Triangulum Australis. Nearly all clusters show a significant radial temperature decline. For a typical 7 keV cluster, the temperature decline between 1 and 6 X-ray core radii (0.15 and 0.9/h Mpc) can be approximately quantified by a polytropic index of 1.2-1.3. Assuming such a polytropic temperature profile, the gravitating mass within 1 and within 6 core radii is approximately 1.35 and 0.7 times the isothermal beta-model estimates, respectively. Most interestingly, we find that temperature profiles, excluding those for the most asymmetric clusters, appear remarkably similar when plotted against radius in units of the estimated virial radius. We compare the composite temperature profile to the published hydrodynamic simulations. The observed profiles appear steeper than those in most Lagrangian simulations (Evrard etal 1996; Eke etal 1997). The predictions for Omega=1 models are most discrepant, while models with low Omega are closer to our data. We note, however, that at least one Omega=1 Lagrangian simulation (Katz & White 1993) and the recent high-resolution Eulerian simulation (Bryan & Norman 1997) produced clusters with temperature profiles similar to or steeper than those observed. Our results thus provide a new constraint for adjusting numerical simulations and, potentially, discriminating among models of cluster formation. (ABRIDGED)

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arXiv1997

Temperature Structure in Abell 1367

We study the temperature structure of the rich cluster of galaxies Abell 1367 using two independent methods of correcting for the ASCA PSF. The results of the two methods are in excellent agreement and give solid evidence of a strong and localized shock in the intracluster medium (ICM). Our analysis suggests that we are observing the merger of two subclusters. We find that the lower luminosity subcluster, located to the northwest, has a higher temperature of 4.2 +/- 0.3 keV, compared to the more luminous southeast subcluster, whose temperature is 3.2 +/- 0.1 keV. An analysis of the ROSAT surface brightness profiles of both subclusters is also presented. The data agree well with predictions from numerical simulations of mergers between subcluster sized masses, in particular, with early stages of the merger, prior to the first core passage.

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arXiv1997

Dark Matter and Baryon Fraction at the Virial Radius in Abell 2256

We combine ASCA and ROSAT X-ray data to constrain the radial dark matter distribution in the primary cluster of A2256, free from the isothermality assumption. Both instruments indicate that the temperature declines with radius. The region including the central galaxy has a multicomponent spectrum, which results in a wide range of allowed central temperatures. We find that the secondary subcluster has a temperature and luminosity typical of a rich cluster; however, the ASCA temperature map shows no signs of an advanced merger. It is therefore assumed that the primary cluster is in hydrostatic equilibrium. The data then require dark matter density profiles steeper than rho ~ r^-2.5 in its outer part. Acceptable models have a total mass within r=1.5 Mpc (the virial radius) of 6.0+-1.5 10^14 Msun at the 90% confidence, about 1.6 times smaller than the mass derived assuming isothermality. Near the center, dark matter profiles with and without central cusps are consistent with the data. Total mass inside the X-ray core (r=0.26 Mpc) is 1.28+-0.08 10^14 Msun, which exceeds the isothermal value by a factor of 1.4. Although the confidence intervals above may be underestimates since they do not include possible asymmetry and departures from hydrostatic equilibrium, the behavior of the mass distribution, if applicable to other clusters, can bring into better agreement X-ray and lensing mass estimates, but aggravate the ``baryon catastrophe''. The observed considerable increase in the gas content with radius, not anticipated by simulations, may imply that a significant fraction of thermal gas energy comes from sources other than gravity and merger shocks.

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arXiv1995

ABELL 2163: Temperature, Mass, and Hydrostatic Equilibrium

Using ASCA data, we have measured the electron temperature in A2163 out to 1.5h^{-1} Mpc (10a_x) from the center, in three radial bins. The temperatures are 12.2+1.9-1.2 keV, 11.5+2.7-2.9 keV and 3.8+1.1-0.9 keV (90%) in the 0-3 a_x (0-3.5'), 3-6 a_x and 6-13 a_x spherical shells, respectively. Applying the hydrostatic equilibrium and spherical symmetry assumptions and using these data together with the Ginga spectral and the Rosat imaging data, we were able to severely limit the possible binding mass distribution of the generic form rho=rho_0 (1+r^2/a_b^2)^{-n/2}. All the allowed binding mass profiles are steeper than the gas density profiles and mass profiles with the same slope as gas are excluded at a greater than 99% confidence. The total mass inside 0.5h^{-1} Mpc is 4.3+-0.5 10^14 h^{-1} Msun, of which 0.074 h^{-3/2} is gas while inside 1.5h^{-1} Mpc the mass is 1.07+-0.13 10^15 h^{-1} Msun. We note that in the cluster outer part, the timescale for electron-ion temperature equlibration is comparable to the merger timescale, so the measured electron temperature may give an underestimate of the gas pressure there. Otherwise, if our low temperature is indeed representative of the gas temperature in the outer shell, the cluster atmosphere should be convectionally unstable and gas turbulence should exist. Bulk motions of the gas are also expected during the merger. Their existense would increase the total gas pressure above that indicated by the observed temperature. Thus, failure of the "gas follows dark matter" model, favored by hydrodynamic simulations, may be due to the neglect of these phenomena, leading to an underestimate of the total density at large radii.

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