Chandra Observation of Abell 2142: Survival of Dense Subcluster Cores in a Merger

By M. Markevitch, Trevor J. Ponman, P. Nulsen, M. Bautz, D. Burke, L. David, D. S. Davis, R. Donnelly, W. Forman, C. Jones and 12 more. 2000

390 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We use Chandra data to map the gas temperature in the central region of the merging cluster A2142. The cluster is markedly nonisothermal; it appears that the central cooling flow has been disturbed but not destroyed by a merger. The X-ray image exhibits two sharp, bow-shaped, shocklike surface brightness edges or gas density discontinuities. However, temperature and pressure profiles across these edges indicate that these are not shock fronts. The pressure is reasonably continuous across these edges, while the entropy jumps in the opposite sense to that in a shock (i.e., the denser side of the edge has lower temperature, and hence lower entropy). Most plausibly, these edges delineate the dense subcluster cores that have survived a merger and ram pressure stripping by the surrounding shock-heated gas.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0bbed2e09cd0d9ebc8b3cffbbe77e09851408f28

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Citations in the corpus

Modified Entropy Models for the Intracluster Medium (2002, background): “—Chandra observations of several clusters have revealed ‘‘ cold fronts ’’ thought to be evidence of low-entropy gas sloshing around in the cores of those clusters (Markevitch et al. 2000; Vikhlinin, Markevitch, & Murray 2001).”
Chandra Observations of A2029: The Dark Matter Profile Down to below 0.01rvir in an Unusually Relaxed Cluster (2002, methodology): “…then subtracted the available source-free extragalactic sky background maps using the make_acisbg software created by Maxim Markevitch (see, e.g., Markevitch et al. 2000).4 We have also applied the latest correction to the ARF files to account for an apparent time-dependent degradation in…”
THE EVOLUTION OF X-RAY CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES (2002, background): “Chandra imaging of low redshift clusters has revealed a complex thermodynamical structure of the ICM down to kiloparsec scales (e.g. Markevitch et al. 2000, Fabian et al. 2000).”
Models of Galaxy Clusters with Thermal Conduction (2002, result): “While our work suggests that conduction is effective over much of the volume of a cluster, we note that Chandra observations have revealed sharp temperature jumps in some clusters (e.g., Markevitch et al. 2000; Vikhlinin, Markevitch, &Murray 2001a, 2001b).”
What is a cool-core cluster? a detailed analysis of the cores of the X-ray flux-limited HIFLUGCS cluster sample (2009, background): “A2142 This cluster has a double cold front (Markevitch et al. 2000).”
A Textbook Example of a Bow Shock in the Merging Galaxy Cluster 1E 0657–56 (2001, background): “To determine whether it is indeed a shock (and not a “cold front”, e.g., Markevitch et al. 2000; Vikhlinin et al. 2001), below we derive the gas temperatures on both sides of the feature (see §3.1).”
Chandra X-Ray Observations of the X-Ray Faint Elliptical Galaxy NGC 4697 (2001, background): “The ACIS S3 chip is known to experience occasional periods of high background (Markevitch 2000 ;4 Markevitch et al. 2000).”
The Properties of the X-Ray Holes in the Intracluster Medium of the Perseus Cluster (2001, positive): “It is possible too that magnetic fields in the thermal gas also restrict mixing, which might otherwise lead to fast cooling of the relativistic phase (note that very sharp boundaries between cooler and hotter gas have been seen in several clusters; e.g. Markevitch et al 2000).”
A deep Chandra observation of the Perseus cluster: shocks and ripples (2003, background): “There is therefore a large pressure increase going inward over the front and it is not a simple ‘cold front’ (Markevitch et al. 2000); the inner region is at a higher pressure and the front must be expanding.”
Off-Axis Cluster Mergers: Effects of a Strongly Peaked Dark Matter Profile (2001, background): “The Chandra and XMM satellites are producing ICM temperature maps of much higher spatial and spectral resolution and energy sensitivity than was previously possible (see, e.g., Markevitch et al. 2000 ; Vikhlinin, Markevitch, & Murray 2001 ; Mazzotta et al. 2001).”
On the Origin of Intracluster Entropy (2003, background): “The recently observed presence of cold fronts in clusters (Markevitch et al. 2000; Vikhlinin, Markevitch, & Murray 2001) suggests that dense subhalos can remain coherent for quite a long time before blending with the rest of the intracluster medium.”
An Overview of the Performance and Scientific Results from the Chandra X‐Ray Observatory (2001, background): “The early images of the cluster A2142 (Markevitch et al. 2000) show two sharp, bow-shaped shocklike surface brightness features; the surface brightness is discontinuous on a scale smaller than 5 –10 .”
Cluster Magnetic Fields (2001, background): “They are not shocks, since the increase in density is accompanied by a decrease in temperature such that there is no dramatic change in the pressure and entropy across the front (Markevitch et al. 2000; Ettori & Fabian 2000).”
Subaru Weak Lensing Study of Seven Merging Clusters: Distributions of Mass and Baryons (2007, background): “Cold fronts were discovered for the first time in this cluster by the Chandra X-ray observation (Markevitch et al. 2000).”
High-Resolution X-Ray Spectroscopic Constraints on Cooling-Flow Models for Clusters of Galaxies (2002, background): “Observationally, conduction is suppressed by factors of near 100 in identified cold fronts (Ettori & Fabian 2000; Markevitch et al. 2000; Vikhlinin, Markevitch, & Murray 2001).”