arXiv subjects

S. A. Walker

Publications and source records attributed to S. A. Walker.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

A detailed study of the bridge of excess X-ray emission between the galaxy clusters Abell 2029 and Abell 2033

We examine Suzaku, XMM-Newton, and Chandra observations of the Abell 2029/2033 system to investigate the nature of a bridge of X-ray emission joining the two galaxy clusters. By modelling the contributions from the outskirts of the two clusters, and excluding the emission from the southern infalling group and the background group LOS9, we find a significant excess of X-ray emission between the two clusters at the level of 6.5-7.0$σ$, depending on the choice of model, that cannot be explained by the overlap of the clusters. This excess component to the surface brightness is consistent with being emission from a filament with roughly 1.0 Mpc wide. The derived emission measure for the gas associated with the filament yields an average gas density of $3.7^{+1.0}_{-0.7} \times 10^{-5}$ cm$^{-3}$, corresponding roughly to 160 times the mean baryon density of the Universe. The Suzaku X-ray spectrum of the excess emission indicates that it is significantly colder ($1.4_{-0.5}^{+0.7}$ keV) than the cluster outskirts emission from the two clusters ($\sim$ 5 keV), statistically consistent with the temperature expected from the hottest and densest parts of the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). The geometry, density, and temperature are similar to those found from X-ray studies of the Abell 222/223 filament.

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arXiv2021

Measuring sloshing, merging and feedback velocities in the Virgo cluster

We present a detailed analysis of the velocity structure of the Virgo cluster using {\it XMM-Newton} observations. Using a novel technique which uses uses the Cu K$α$ instrumental line to calibrate the EPIC-pn energy scale, we are able to obtain velocity measurements with uncertainties down to $Δv \sim 100$ km/s. We created 2D projected maps for the velocity, temperature, metallicity, density, pressure and entropy with an spatial resolution of 0.25$'$. We have found that in the innermost gas there is a high velocity structure, most likely indicating the presence of an outflow from the AGN while our analysis of the cluster cool core using RGS data indicates that the velocity of the gas agrees with the M87 optical redshift. An overall gradient in the velocity is seen, with larger values as we move away from the cluster core. The hot gas located within the western radio flow is redshifted, moving with a velocity $\sim 331$ km/s while the hot gas located within the eastern radio flow is blueshifted, with a velocity $\sim 258$ km/s, suggesting the presence of backflows. Our results reveal the effects of both AGN outflows and gas sloshing, in the complex velocity field of the Virgo cluster.

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arXiv2021

Gas clumping in the outskirts of the Virgo cluster

Observations of the ICM in the outskirts of the Virgo cluster with Suzaku have found the gas mass fraction in the northern direction to be significantly above the expected level, indicating that there may be a very high level of gas clumping on small scales in this direction. Here, we explore the XMM-Newton data in the outskirts of Virgo, dividing it into a Voronoi tessellation to separate the bulk ICM component from the clumped ICM component. As the nearest galaxy cluster, Virgo's large angular extent allows the spatial scale of the tessellation to be much smaller than has been achieved using the same technique on intermediate redshift clusters, allowing us to probe gas clumping on the scales down to 5$\times$5 kpc. We find that the level of gas clumping in the outskirts to the north is relatively mild, ($\sqrt{C} < 1.1$), suggesting that our point-source detection procedure may have excluded a significant fraction of clumps. While correcting for clumping brings the gas mass fraction at $r_{200}$ into agreement with the universal gas mass fraction, the values outside $r_{200}$ remain significantly above it. This may suggest that non-thermal pressure support in the outskirts to the north is significant, and we find that a non-thermal pressure support at the level of 20 per cent of the total pressure outside $r_{200}$ can explain the high gas mass fraction to the north, which is in agreement with the range expected from simulations.

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arXiv2021

The interaction between rising bubbles and cold fronts in cool core clusters

We investigate whether the swirling cold front in the core of the Perseus Cluster of galaxies has affected the outer buoyant bubbles that originated from jets from the Active Galactic Nucleus in the central galaxy NGC1275. The inner bubbles and the Outer Southern bubble lie along a North-South axis through the nucleus, whereas the Outer Northern bubble appears rotated about 45 deg from that axis. Detailed numerical simulations of the interaction indicates that the Outer Northern bubble may have been pushed clockwise accounting for its current location. Given the common occurrence of cold fronts in cool core clusters, we raise the possibility that the lack of many clear outer bubbles in such environments may be due to their disruption by cold fronts.

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arXiv2021

Voyage through the Hidden Physics of the Cosmic Web

The majority of the ordinary matter in the local Universe has been heated by strong structure formation shocks and resides in a largely unexplored hot, diffuse, X-ray emitting plasma that permeates the halos of galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters, and the cosmic web. We propose a next-generation "Cosmic Web Explorer" that will permit a complete and exhaustive understanding of these unseen baryons. This will be the first mission capable to reach the accretion shocks located several times farther than the virial radii of galaxy clusters, and reveal the out-of-equilibrium parts of the intra-cluster medium which are live witnesses to the physics of cosmic accretion. It will also enable a view of the thermodynamics, kinematics, and chemical composition of the circumgalactic medium in galaxies with masses similar to the Milky Way, at the same level of detail that $Athena$ will unravel for the virialized regions of massive galaxy clusters, delivering a transformative understanding of the evolution of those galaxies in which most of the stars and metals in the Universe were formed. Finally, the proposed X-ray satellite will connect the dots of the large-scale structure by mapping, at high spectral resolution, as much as 100% of the diffuse gas hotter than $10^6$ K that fills the filaments of the cosmic web at low redshifts, down to an over-density of 1, both in emission and in absorption against the ubiquitous cosmic X-ray background, surveying at least 1600 square degrees over 5 years in orbit. This requires a large effective area (~10 m$^2$ at 1 keV) over a large field of view ($\sim1$ deg$^2$), a megapixel cryogenic microcalorimeter array providing integral field spectroscopy with a resolving power $E/ΔE$ = 2000 at 0.6 keV and a spatial resolution of 5 arcsec in the soft X-ray band, and a low and stable instrumental background ensuring high sensitivity to faint, extended emission.

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arXiv2021

Probing ultra-diffuse galaxies out to the virial radius of the Coma cluster with XMM-Newton

We probe the formation scenarios and the active galactic nuclei (AGN) occupation fraction of ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) in the nearby Coma cluster by utilizing XMM-Newton observations of 779 out of 854 UDG candidates identified by Subaru survey. Their origin is probed by measuring the dark matter halo mass of the stacked sample of UDGs and the population of low-mass X-ray binaries residing in globular clusters. Our measurements suggest that the average UDG population does not have a substantial amount of hot gas or a large number of globular clusters. This supports the formation scenario, in which UDGs are puffed-up dwarf galaxies, agreeing with that obtained for 404 Coma cluster UDGs using Chandra. We also determine AGN occupation fraction of UDGs by cross-correlating the position of UDGs with the detected point sources in Coma. We detect three X-ray sources with detection significance $σ\geq 5$ that could be off-centre AGN within 5 arcsec from the centre of the UDG 317, UDG 432, and UDG 535. We identify an optical counterpart for the X-ray source associated with the UDG 317, suggesting that this source is more likely an off-centre AGN. Based on the current data, however, we cannot conclusively constrain whether the detected AGN is residing in the Coma cluster or not.

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arXiv2021

Probing within the Bondi radius of the ultramassive black hole in NGC 1600

We present deep (250 ks) Chandra observations of the nearby galaxy group NGC 1600, which has at its centre an ultramassive black hole (17$\pm$1.5 billion M$_{\odot}$). The exceptionally large mass of the black hole coupled with its low redshift makes it one of only a handful of black holes for which spatially resolved temperature and density profiles can be obtained within the Bondi radius with the high spatial resolution of Chandra. We analyzed the hot gas properties within the Bondi accretion radius R$_B$=1.2" - 1.7"= 0.38 - 0.54 kpc. Within a $\sim\!3$ kpc radius, we find two temperature components with statistical significance. Both the single temperature and two temperature models show only a very slight rise in temperature towards the centre, and are consistent with being flat. This is in contrast with the expectation from Bondi accretion for a temperature profile which increases towards the centre, and appears to indicate that the dynamics of the gas are not being determined by the central black hole. The density profile follows a relatively shallow $ρ\propto~r^{-[0.61\pm0.13]}$ relationship within the Bondi radius, which suggests that the true accretion rate on to the black hole may be lower than the classical Bondi accretion rate.

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arXiv2020

Exploring the hot gaseous halo around an extremely massive and relativistic jet launching spiral galaxy with XMM-Newton

We present a deep XMM-Newton observation of the extremely massive, rapidly rotating, relativistic-jet-launching spiral galaxy 2MASX J23453268-0449256. Diffuse X-ray emission from the hot gaseous halo around the galaxy is robustly detected out to a radius of 160 kpc, corresponding roughly to 35 per cent of the virial radius ($\approx 450$ kpc). We fit the X-ray emission with the standard isothermal $β$ model, and it is found that the enclosed gas mass within 160 kpc is $1.15_{-0.24}^{+0.22} \times 10^{11} \, \rm{M}_{\odot}$. Extrapolating the gas mass profile out to the virial radius, the estimated gas mass is $8.25_{-1.77}^{+1.62} \times 10^{11} \, \rm{M}_{\odot}$, which makes up roughly 65 per cent of the total baryon mass content of the galaxy. When the stellar mass is considered and accounting for the statistical and systematic uncertainties, the baryon mass fraction within the virial radius is $0.121_{-0.043}^{+0.043}$, in agreement with the universal baryon fraction. The baryon mass fraction is consistent with all baryons falling within $r_{200}$, or with only half of the baryons falling within $r_{200}$. Similar to the massive spiral galaxies NGC 1961 and NGC 6753, we find a low value for the metal abundance of $\approx 0.1 {\rm{Z}}_{\odot}$, which appears uniform with radius. We also detect diffuse X-ray emission associated with the northern and southern lobes, possibly attributed to inverse Compton scattering of cosmic microwave background photons. The estimated energy densities of the electrons and magnetic field in these radio lobes suggest that they are electron-dominated by a factor of 10$-$200, depending on the choice of the lower cut-off energy of the electron spectrum.

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arXiv2020

A high coverage view of the thermodynamics and metal abundance in the outskirts of the nearby galaxy cluster Abell 2199

We present a joint Suzaku and XMM-Newton analysis of the outskirts of the nearby galaxy cluster Abell 2199, the only nearby galaxy cluster to be observed with near complete azimuthal coverage with Suzaku. Using the XMM-Newton observations to correct for the effects of gas clumping, we find that the azimuthally averaged entropy profile in the outskirts follows a power law with a slope of $1.20 \pm 0.23$, statistically consistent with a slope of 1.1 predicted by non-radiative simulations for purely gravitational hierarchical structure formation. However, when divided into 10 sectors, the entropy shows significant azimuthal variation, with some sectors lying below the baseline level. The azimuthally averaged gas mass fraction is found to agree with the cosmic mean baryon fraction. The metal abundance in the outskirts is found to be consistent with being uniform in all directions and it has an average value of $0.29_{-0.03}^{+0.03}\,Z_{\odot}$, consistent with the gas accreting onto clusters being pre-enriched with metals.

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arXiv2020

A complete view of the outskirts of the Coma cluster

We present a new extended XMM-Newton mosaic of the nearby Coma cluster, which covers the cluster out to the virial radius with nearly complete azimuthal coverage. This large mosaic is combined with the Planck Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect observations to recover the thermodynamic properties of the intracluster medium in an azimuthally averaged profile and 36 angular sectors, producing the highest spatial resolution view of the thermodynamics of the outskirts of a galaxy cluster in its entirety. Beyond $r_{500}$, our clumping corrected entropy measurements along the less disturbed directions are statistically consistent with the power-law entropy profile predicted by non-radiative simulations, and the gas mass fraction agrees with the mean cosmic baryon fraction. However, there is a clear entropy deficit in the outskirts to the southwest, coinciding with where Coma connects to a cosmic web filament which joins it to Abell 1367. The low entropy to the southwest extends from 0.5-1.0$r_{200}$, and is consistent with what is expected from simulations of a filamentary gas stream penetrating into the cluster as it continues to accrete matter from the cosmic web. We also find that the radial profiles of the recovered quantities become increasingly asymmetric in the outskirts, particularly along the more disturbed directions, consistent with the predictions of cosmological simulations.

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arXiv2020

Is there an enormous cold front at the virial radius of the Perseus cluster?

We present new XMM-Newton observations extending the mosaic of the Perseus cluster out to the virial radius to the west. Previous studies with ROSAT have reported a large excess in surface brightness to the west, possibly the result of large scale gas sloshing, but lacked the spatial resolution and depth to determine if this excess lay behind a cold front. In our new XMM observations we have found that there is a sharp edge in X-ray surface brightness near the cluster virial radius (1.7Mpc) to the west, with a width comparable to the mean free path. The temperature measurements obtained with Suzaku data across this edge show that the temperature increases sharply outside this edge. All of these properties are consistent with this edge being the largest cold front ever observed in a galaxy cluster. We also find a second edge to the west, 1.2Mpc from the core, which also appears to be a cold front. Our results indicate that magnetic fields are able to stabilize the cold fronts against turbulence all the way out to the cluster virial radius. By comparing with numerical simulations, we find that these large cold fronts require large impact parameter, low mass ratio mergers which can produce fast gas motions without destroying the cluster core.

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arXiv2019

Measuring bulk flows of the intracluster medium in the Perseus and Coma galaxy clusters using XMM-Newton

We demonstrate a novel technique for calibrating the energy scale of the XMM EPIC-pn detector, which allows us to measure bulk flows in the intracluster medium (ICM) of the Perseus and Coma clusters. The procedure uses the instrumental lines present in all observations, in particular, Cu-Ka. By studying their spatial and temporal variations, in addition to incorporating calibration observations, we refined the absolute energy scale to better than 150 km/s at the Fe-K line, a large improvement over the nominal accuracy of 550 km/s. We then mapped the bulk motions over much of the central 1200 and 800 kpc of Perseus and Coma, respectively, in spatial regions down to 65 and 140 kpc size. We cross-checked our procedure by comparing our measurements with those found in Perseus by Hitomi for an overlapping region, finding consistent results. For Perseus, there is a LoS velocity increase of 480+-210 km/s (1sigma) 250 kpc east of the nucleus. This region is associated with a cold front, providing direct evidence of the ICM sloshing in the potential well. Assuming the intrinsic distribution of bulk motions is Gaussian, its width is 214+-85 km/s, excluding systematics. Removing the sloshing region, this is reduced to 20-150 km/s, which is similar in magnitude to the Hitomi line width measurements in undisturbed regions. In Coma, the line-of-sight velocity of the ICM varies between the velocities of the two central galaxies. Maps of the gas velocity and metallicity provide clues about the merger history of the Coma, with material to the north and east of the cluster core having a velocity similar to NGC 4874, while that to the south and west has velocities close to NGC 4889. Our results highlight the difference between a merging system, such as Coma, where we observe a ~1000 km/s range in velocity, and a relatively relaxed system, such as Perseus, with much weaker bulk motions. [abridged]

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arXiv2019

The X-ray Coronae of two massive galaxies in the core of the Perseus cluster

We study the X-ray properties of two elliptical galaxies, NGC 1270 and NGC 1272, in the core of the Perseus cluster with deep Chandra observations. Both galaxies have central supermassive black holes, the mass of which is $6.0 \times 10^{9}$ M$_{\odot}$ and $2.0 \times 10^{9}$ M$_{\odot}$ respectively. Our aim is to examine relatively cool soft X-ray emitting gas within the central region of these massive early-type galaxies. Such gas, referred to as a Minicorona in previous studies is common in the core of large elliptical cluster galaxies. It has not been completely stripped or evaporated by the surrounding hot intracluster medium and nor fully accreted onto the central black hole. With thermal emission from the minicorona dominating over any power-law radiation components, we find that both NGC 1270 and NGC 1272 encompass minicoronae, the temperature and radius of which are $0.99$ keV and $0.63$ keV; $1.4$ kpc and $1.2$ kpc respectively. For NGC 1272, the thermal coronal component dominates the core emission by a factor of over 10. We show that the depletion time scale of minicoronal gas via viscous stripping is shorter by a factor of $100$ than the replenishment time scale due to stellar mass loss. Magnetic fields are presumably responsible for suppression of the transport processes. Finally, we show that both objects have to meet a balance between cooling and heating as well as that among mass replenishment, stripping and accretion.

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arXiv2018

What fraction of the density fluctuations in the Perseus cluster core is due to gas sloshing rather than AGN feedback?

Deep Chandra observations of the core of the Perseus cluster show a plethora of complex structure. It has been found that when the observed density fluctuations in the intracluster medium are converted into constraints on AGN induced turbulence, the resulting turbulent heating rates are sufficient to balance cooling locally throughout the central 220kpc. However while the signatures of AGN feedback (inflated bubbles) dominate the central 60kpc in X-ray images, beyond this radius the intracluster medium is increasingly shaped by the effects of gas sloshing, which can also produce subtle variations in X-ray surface brightness. We use mock Chandra observations of gas sloshing simulations to investigate what fraction of the observed density fluctuations in the core of the Perseus galaxy cluster may originate from sloshing rather than AGN induced feedback. Outside 60kpc, we find that the observed level of the density fluctuations is broadly consistent with being produced by sloshing alone. If this is the case, AGN-generated turbulence is likely to be insufficient in combating cooling outside 60kpc.

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arXiv2017

Hydrostatic Chandra X-ray analysis of SPT-selected galaxy clusters - I. Evolution of profiles and core properties

We analyse Chandra X-ray Observatory observations of a set of galaxy clusters selected by the South Pole Telescope using a new publicly-available forward-modelling projection code, MBProj2, assuming hydrostatic equilibrium. By fitting a powerlaw plus constant entropy model we find no evidence for a central entropy floor in the lowest-entropy systems. A model of the underlying central entropy distribution shows a narrow peak close to zero entropy which accounts for 60 per cent of the systems, and a second broader peak around 130 keV cm^2. We look for evolution over the 0.28 to 1.2 redshift range of the sample in density, pressure, entropy and cooling time at 0.015 R_500 and at 10 kpc radius. By modelling the evolution of the central quantities with a simple model, we find no evidence for a non-zero slope with redshift. In addition, a non-parametric sliding median shows no significant change. The fraction of cool-core clusters with central cooling times below 2 Gyr is consistent above and below z=0.6 (~30-40 per cent). Both by comparing the median thermodynamic profiles, centrally biased towards cool cores, in two redshift bins, and by modelling the evolution of the unbiased average profile as a function of redshift, we find no significant evolution beyond self-similar scaling in any of our examined quantities. Our average modelled radial density, entropy and cooling-time profiles appear as powerlaws with breaks around 0.2 R_500. The dispersion in these quantities rises inwards of this radius to around 0.4 dex, although some of this scatter can be fit by a bimodal model.

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arXiv2017

XMM-Newton observation of the ultraluminous quasar SDSS J010013.02+280225.8 at redshift 6.326

A brief Chandra observation of the ultraluminous quasar, SDSS J010013.02+280225.8 at redshift 6.326, showed it to be a relatively bright, soft X-ray source with a count rate of about 1 ct/ks. In this paper we present results for the quasar from a 65ks XMM-Newton observation, which well constrains its spectral shape. The quasar is clearly detected with a total of $\sim$ 460 net counts in the 0.2-10 keV band. The spectrum is characterised by a simple power-law model with photon index of $Γ= 2.30^{+0.10}_{-0.10}$, and the intrinsic 2-10 keV luminosity is $3.14\times10^{45}$ erg $\text{s}^{-1}$. The 1 $σ$ upper limit to any intrinsic absorption column density is $N_{H} = 6.07\times 10^{22} {\text{cm}}^{-2}$. No significant iron emission lines were detected. We derive the X-ray-to-optical flux ratio $α_{\text{ox}}$ of $-1.74\pm$0.01, consistent with the values found in other quasars of comparable ultraviolet luminosity. We did not detect significant flux variations either in the XMM-Newton exposure or between XMM-Newton and XMM-Newton observations, which are separated by $\sim$ 8 months. The X-ray observation enables the bolometric luminosity to be calculated after modelling the spectral energy distribution: the accretion rate is found to be sub-Eddington.

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arXiv2017

Is there a giant Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in the sloshing cold front of the Perseus cluster?

Deep observations of nearby galaxy clusters with Chandra have revealed concave 'bay' structures in a number of systems (Perseus, Centaurus and Abell 1795), which have similar X-ray and radio properties. These bays have all the properties of cold fronts, where the temperature rises and density falls sharply, but are concave rather than convex. By comparing to simulations of gas sloshing, we find that the bay in the Perseus cluster bears a striking resemblance in its size, location and thermal structure, to a giant ($\approx$50 kpc) roll resulting from Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities. If true, the morphology of this structure can be compared to simulations to put constraints on the initial average ratio of the thermal and magnetic pressure, $β= p_{\rm th} / p_{\rm B}$, throughout the overall cluster before the sloshing occurs, for which we find $β=200$ to best match the observations. Simulations with a stronger magnetic field ($β=100$) are disfavoured, as in these the large Kelvin-Helmholtz rolls do not form, while in simulations with a lower magnetic field ($β=500$) the level of instabilities is much larger than is observed. We find that the bay structures in Centaurus and Abell 1795 may also be explained by such features of gas sloshing.

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arXiv2016

Do sound waves transport the AGN energy in the Perseus Cluster?

The level of random motions in the intracluster gas lying between 20 and 60 kpc radius in the core of the Perseus cluster has been measured by the Hitomi Soft X-ray Spectrometer at 164 +/- 10 km/s. The maximum energy density in turbulent motions on that scale is therefore low. If dissipated as heat the turbulent energy will be radiated away in less than 80 Myr and cannot spread across the core. A higher velocity is needed to prevent a cooling collapse. Gravity waves are shown to travel too slowly in a radial direction. Here we investigate propagation of energy by sound waves. The energy travels at about 1000 km/s and can cross the core in a cooling time. We show that the displacement velocity amplitude of the gas required to carry the power is consistent with the Hitomi result and that the inferred density and temperature variations are consistent with Chandra observations.

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