By analyzing the azimuthal variations of total gravitating mass profiles in the central 300 h^-1 71 kpc regions of four galaxy clusters with Chandra data, we find that the azimuthally-averaged mass profiles may have been systematically underestimated by 16^+9 -8% at lσ significance in the 50-100 h^-1 71 kpc regions, probably due to the prevailing existence of 2-D hot gas substructures in 100-300h^-1 71 kpc. The mass biases become negligible(-7+11 _9+ %) at 〉 150 h^-1 71 kpc. We confirm the results that the gas temperature maps can be used to probe the departure from hydrostatic equilibrium and help quantify the systematic biases in X-ray mass measurements in the central regions of clusters.
Li-Yi Gu Yu Wang Jun-Hua Gu Jing-Ying Wang Zhen-Zhen Qin Meng-Yu Yao Jian-Long Yang Hai-Guang Xu
By analyzing Chandra X-ray data of a sample of 21 galaxy groups and 19 galaxy clusters, we find that in 31 sample systems there exists a significant central (R ≤ 10 h^-171 kpc) gas entropy excess (AK0), which corresponds to = 0.1 - 0.5 keV per gas particle, beyond the power-law model that best fits the radial entropy profile of the outer regions. We also find a distinct correlation between the central entropy excess △K0 and K-band luminosity LK of the central dominating galaxies (CDGs), which is scaled as △K0 ∝ L K 1.6±04, where LK is tightly associated with the mass of the supermassive black hole hosted in the CDG. In fact, if an effective mass-to-energy conversionefficiency of 0.02 is assumed for the accretion process, the cumulative AGN feedback E AGN feedack=ηMBHc2 yields an extra heating of = 0.5 - 17.0keV per particle, which feedback is sufficient to explain the central entropy excess. In most cases, the AGN contribution can compensate the radiative loss of the X-ray gas within the cooling radius (= 0.002 - 2.2 keV per particle), and apparently exceeds the energy required to cause the scaling relations to deviate from the self-similar predictions (=0.2 - 1.0 keV per particle). In contrast to the AGN feedback, the extra heating provided by supernova explosions accounts for = 0.01 - 0.08 keV per particle in groups and is almost negligible in clusters. Therefore, the observed correlation between △K0 and Lx can be considered as direct evidence for AGN feedback in galaxy groups and clusters.
By performing a two dimensional spectral analysis on the galaxy group NGC 533 with high-quality Chandra data, we find that the metal abundance distribution in this group is anisotropic. In the area around 2.5′ from the center, we find two concentrations of high abundance structures, in which the abundances are significantly higher than their surrounding regions at the 90% confidence level. We find that the total iron mass in these two regions agrees with the iron mass synthesized in the central dominant galaxy in n 19+0.08 Gyr. The double-sided configuration of the high abun- 0.03 dance structure, together with the point-like radio emission in the center suggests that the abundance structures could have been transported from the center to their present positions by active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity. We further calculate the energy required for transport, and find that it could have been supplied during an AGN period. However, considering that this group is reported to have experienced a recent merger, the possibility that this merger is responsible for the abundance structures still cannot be excluded.
By creating and analyzing two dimensional gas temperature and abundance maps of the RGH 80 compact galaxy group with high-quality Chandra data,we detect a high-abundance ( 0.7 Z⊙) arc,where the metal abundance is significantly higher than the surrounding regions by 0.3Z⊙.This structure shows tight spatial correlations with the member galaxy PGC 046529,as well as with the arm-like feature identified on the X-ray image in the previous work of Randall et al.(2009).Since no apparent signature of AGN activity is found to be associated with PGC 046529 in multi-band observations,and the gas temperature,metallicity,and mass of the high-abundance arc resemble those of the ISM of typical early-type galaxies,we conclude that this high-abundance structure is the remnant of the ISM of PGC 046529,which was stripped out of the galaxy by ram pressure stripping due to the motion of PGC 046529 in RGH 80.This novel case shows that ram pressure stripping can work as efficiently in the metal enrichment process in galaxy groups as it can in galaxy clusters.
Hai-Juan CuiHai-Guang XuJun-Hua GuJing-Ying WangLi-Yi GuYu WangZhen-Zhen QinTao An
Based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR6 (SDSS) and the 'Millennium Simulation (MS), we investigate the alignment between galaxies and large-scale structure. For this purpose, we develop two new statistical tools, namely the alignment correlation function and the cos(20)-statistic. The former is a two-dimensional extension of the traditional two-point correlation function and the latter is related to the ellipticity correlation function used for cosmic shear measurements. Both are based on the cross correlation between a sample of galaxies with orientations and a reference sample which represents the large-scale structure. We apply the new statistics to the SDSS galaxy catalog. The alignment correlation function reveals an overabundance of reference galaxies along the major axes of red, luminous (L 〉 ~L*) galaxies out to projected separations of 60 h-lMpc. The signal increases with central galaxy luminosity. No alignment signal is detected for blue galaxies. The cos(2θ)-statistic yields very similar results. Starting from a MS semi-analytic galaxy catalog, we assign an orientation to each red, luminous and central galaxy, based on that of the central region of the host halo (with size similar to that of the stellar galaxy). As an alternative, we use the orientation of the host halo itself. We find a mean projected misalignment between a halo and its central region of -25°. The misalignment decreases slightly with increasing luminosity of the central galaxy. Using the orientations and luminosities of the semi-analytic galaxies, we repeat our alignment analysis on mock surveys of the MS. Agreement with the SDSS results is good if the central orientations are used. Predictions using the halo orientations as proxies for cen- tral galaxy orientations overestimate the observed alignment by more than a factor of 2. Finally, the large volume of the MS allows us to generate a two-dimensional map of the alignment correlation function, which shows the reference galaxy distribution to be fl
A. FaltenbacherCheng LiSimon D. M. WhiteYi-Peng JingShu-De MaoJie Wang
We present a study of a fossil cluster,SDSS J0150–1005(z 0.364),with high spatial resolution based on the imaging spectroscopic analysis of Chandra observations.The Chandra X-ray image shows a relaxed and symmetric morphology,which indicates that SDSS J0150–1005 is a well-developed galaxy cluster with no sign of a recent merger.According to the isothermal model,its global gas temperature is 5.73±0.80 keV,and the virial mass is 6.23±1.34×1014M⊙.Compared with the polytropic temperature model,the mass calculated based on the isothermal model is overestimated by 49%±11.The central gas entropy,S0.1 r200=143.9±18.3 keV cm2,is significantly lower than the average value of normal galaxy clusters with similar temperatures.Our results indicate that SDSS J0150–1005 formed during an early epoch.
We present a high spatial resolution study of metal distributions in the nearby, gas-rich elliptical galaxies NGC 4374 and NGC 4636 with the Chandra ACIS archive data. We define the hardness ratio HRFeL as the ratio of the emission in 0.65- 1.4 keV to that in 0.3-0.6 keV and 1.4-3.5 keV (after the magnesium and silicon lines are excluded), and HRcont as the ratio of the emission in 1.4-3.5keV to that in 0.3- 0.6 keV, so that the HRFeL and HRcont maps can be used to trace the iron abundance and gas temperature distributions, respectively. By applying the a Trous wavelet algorithm to the obtained emission hardness ratio maps, we reveal that the HRFeL distributions are highly irregular, exhibiting strong spatial variations on 0.1-1 Re scales, which do not follow the HRcont distributions. Since the effect of temperature variation is small, we conclude that most of the high-HRFeL regions are very likely to possess higher abundances than the ambient gas. We also find that these high-HRFeL substructures are not associated with either the LMXB or globular cluster populations, thus their origins should be related to AGN activity or mergers.
Hai-Guang XuJun-Hua GuLi-Yi GuZhong-Li ZhangYu WangTao An