MULTI-WAVELENGTH STUDIES OF SPECTACULAR RAM PRESSURE STRIPPING OF A GALAXY: DISCOVERY OF AN X-RAY ABSORPTION FEATURE
- Research Center for the Early Universe, School of Science, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033 (Japan)
- Optical and Infrared Astronomy Division, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588 (Japan)
- Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033 (Japan)
- Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University, 1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526 (Japan)
- Department of Earth and Space Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama-cho, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043 (Japan)
- Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 650 North A'Ohoku Place, Hilo, HI 96720 (United States)
- Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006 (Australia)
We report the detection of an X-ray absorption feature near the galaxy M86 in the Virgo cluster. The absorber has a column density of 2-3 × 10{sup 20} cm{sup –2}, and its position coincides with the peak of an intracluster H I cloud which was removed from the galaxy NGC 4388 presumably by ram pressure. These results indicate that the H I cloud is located in front of M86 along the line-of-sight, and suggest that the stripping was primarily created by an interaction between NGC 4388 and the hot plasmas of the Virgo cluster, not the M86 halo. By calculating an X-ray temperature map, we further detected an X-ray counterpart of the H I cloud up to ≈3' south of M86. It has a temperature of 0.89 keV and a mass of ∼4.5 × 10{sup 8} M {sub ☉}, exceeding the estimated H I gas mass. The high hot-to-cold gas ratio in the cloud indicates a significant evaporation of the H I gas, probably by thermal conduction from the hotter cluster plasma with a sub-Spitzer rate.
- OSTI ID:
- 22215369
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 777, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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