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Title: HIGH-RESOLUTION XMM-NEWTON SPECTROSCOPY OF THE COOLING FLOW CLUSTER A3112

Journal Article · · Astrophysical Journal
; ;  [1]; ; ; ;  [2]
  1. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
  2. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (United States)

We examine high signal-to-noise XMM-Newton European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC) and Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS) observations to determine the physical characteristics of the gas in the cool core and outskirts of the nearby rich cluster A3112. The XMM-Newton Extended Source Analysis Software data reduction and background modeling methods were used to analyze the XMM-Newton EPIC data. From the EPIC data, we find that the iron and silicon abundance gradients show significant increase toward the center of the cluster while the oxygen abundance profile is centrally peaked but has a shallower distribution than that of iron. The X-ray mass modeling is based on the temperature and deprojected density distributions of the intracluster medium determined from EPIC observations. The total mass of A3112 obeys the M-T scaling relations found using XMM-Newton and Chandra observations of massive clusters at r{sub 500}. The gas mass fraction f{sub gas} = 0.149{sup +0.036}{sub -0.032} at r{sub 500} is consistent with the seven-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe results. The comparisons of line fluxes and flux limits on the Fe XVII and Fe XVIII lines obtained from high-resolution RGS spectra indicate that there is no spectral evidence for cooler gas associated with the cluster with temperature below 1.0 keV in the central <38'' ({approx}52 kpc) region of A3112. High-resolution RGS spectra also yield an upper limit to the turbulent motions in the compact core of A3112 (206 km s{sup -1}). We find that the contribution of turbulence to total energy is less than 6%. This upper limit is consistent with the energy contribution measured in recent high-resolution simulations of relaxed galaxy clusters.

OSTI ID:
22016307
Journal Information:
Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 747, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English