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Title: The metallicity of the intracluster medium over cosmic time: further evidence for early enrichment

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [4];  [1]
  1. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
  2. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  3. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), Kanagawa (Japan)
  4. MTA-Eotvos Univ. Lendulet Hot Universe Research Group, Budapest (Hungary); Masaryk Univ., Brno (Czech Republic); Hiroshima Univ., Higashi-Hiroshima (Japan)

Here, we use Chandra X-ray data to measure the metallicity of the intracluster medium (ICM) in 245 massive galaxy clusters selected from X-ray and Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) effect surveys, spanning redshifts 0 < z < 1.2. Metallicities were measured in three different radial ranges, spanning cluster cores through their outskirts. We explore trends in these measurements as a function of cluster redshift, temperature and surface brightness ‘peakiness’ (a proxy for gas cooling efficiency in cluster centres). The data at large radii (0.5–1 r500) are consistent with a constant metallicity, while at intermediate radii (0.1–0.5 r500) we see a late-time increase in enrichment, consistent with the expected production and mixing of metals in cluster cores. In cluster centres, there are strong trends of metallicity with temperature and peakiness, reflecting enhanced metal production in the lowest entropy gas. Within the cool-core/sharply peaked cluster population, there is a large intrinsic scatter in central metallicity and no overall evolution, indicating significant astrophysical variations in the efficiency of enrichment. The central metallicity in clusters with flat surface brightness profiles is lower, with a smaller intrinsic scatter, but increases towards lower redshifts. Our results are consistent with other recent measurements of ICM metallicity as a function of redshift. They reinforce the picture implied by observations of uniform metal distributions in the outskirts of nearby clusters, in which most of the enrichment of the ICM takes place before cluster formation, with significant later enrichment taking place only in cluster centres, as the stellar populations of the central galaxies evolve.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515; NNX15AE12G
OSTI ID:
1410451
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 472, Issue 3; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 43 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Enrichment of the Hot Intracluster Medium: Numerical Simulations journal November 2018
Enrichment of the Hot Intracluster Medium: Observations journal November 2018
Athena X-IFU synthetic observations of galaxy clusters to probe the chemical enrichment of the Universe journal December 2018
Exploring the spectral variability of the Seyfert 1.5 galaxy Markarian 530 with Suzaku journal May 2018
ALMA observations of a metal-rich damped Ly α absorber at z = 2.5832: evidence for strong galactic winds in a galaxy group journal June 2018
Spatial distribution of metals in the ICM: evolution of the iron excess in relaxed galaxy clusters journal August 2018
The non-uniformity of galaxy cluster metallicity profiles journal November 2018
Constraints on the chemical enrichment history of the Perseus Cluster of galaxies from high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy journal November 2018
Revealing dust-obscured star formation in CLJ1449+0856, a cluster at z = 2 journal April 2019
Magnetic fields and extraordinarily bright radio emission in the X-ray faint galaxy group MRC 0116 + 111 journal May 2019
Mass–metallicity relation from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations and X-ray observations of galaxy groups and clusters journal January 2019
Mass-invariance of the iron enrichment in the hot haloes of massive ellipticals, groups, and clusters of galaxies journal May 2018
The Sources of Extreme Ultraviolet and Soft X-Ray Backgrounds journal December 2018
A Detailed Study of the Most Relaxed SPT-selected Galaxy Clusters: Properties of the Cool Core and Central Galaxy journal January 2019
The Sources of Extreme Ultraviolet and Soft X-ray Backgrounds text January 2017
Mass-invariance of the iron enrichment in the hot haloes of massive ellipticals, groups, and clusters of galaxies text January 2018
Exploring the spectral variability of the Seyfert 1.5 galaxy Markarian 530 with Suzaku text January 2018
Constraints on the Chemical Enrichment History of the Perseus Cluster of Galaxies from High-Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy text January 2018
Athena X-IFU synthetic observations of galaxy clusters to probe the chemical enrichment of the Universe text January 2018
The Non-Uniformity of Galaxy Cluster Metallicity Profiles text January 2018
Magnetic fields and extraordinarily bright radio emission in the X-ray faint galaxy group MRC 0116+111 text January 2019
Enrichment of the Hot Intracluster Medium: Numerical Simulations journal November 2018
Enrichment of the Hot Intracluster Medium: Observations journal November 2018
Hot atmospheres of galaxies, groups, and clusters of galaxies text January 2020