The merging galaxy cluster A520—a broken-up cool core, a dark subcluster, and an X-ray channel
- Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (United States)
- Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
We present results from a deep Chandra X-ray observation of a merging galaxy cluster A520. A high-resolution gas temperature map reveals a long trail of dense, cool clumps—apparently the fragments of a cool core that has been stripped from the infalling subcluster by ram pressure. The clumps should still be connected by the stretched magnetic field lines. The observed temperature variations imply that thermal conductivity is suppressed by a factor >100 across the presumed direction of the magnetic field (as found in other clusters), and is also suppressed along the field lines by a factor of several. Two massive clumps in the periphery of A520, visible in the weak-lensing mass map and the X-ray image, have apparently been completely stripped of gas during the merger, but then re-accreted the surrounding high-entropy gas upon exit from the cluster. The mass clump that hosted the stripped cool core is also reaccreting hotter gas. An X-ray hydrostatic mass estimate for the clump that has the simplest geometry agrees with the lensing mass. Its current gas mass to total mass ratio is very low, 1.5%–3%, which makes it a “dark subcluster.” We also found a curious low X-ray brightness channel (likely a low-density sheet in projection) going across the cluster along the direction of an apparent secondary merger. The channel may be caused by plasma depletion in a region of an amplified magnetic field (with plasma β∼10--20). The shock in A520 will be studied in a separate paper.
- OSTI ID:
- 22868321
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 833, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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