The structural and scaling properties of nearby galaxy clusters. I. The universal mass profile

By E. Pointecouteau, M. Arnaud, G. Pratt. 2005

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We present the integrated mass profiles for a sample of ten nearby (z < 0.15), relaxed galaxy clusters, covering a temperature range of (2−9) keV, observed with XMM-Newton. The mass profiles were derived from the observed gas density and temperature profiles under the hypothesis of spherical symmetry and hydrostatic equilibrium. All ten mass profiles are well described by an NFW-type profile over the radial range from 0.01 to 0.5R200 ,w hereR200 is the radius corresponding to a density contrast of 200 with respect to the critical density at the cluster redshift. A King model is inconsistent with these data. The derived concentration parameters and total masses are in the range c200 = 4− 6a ndM200 = 1.2×10 14 −1.2×10 15 M� , respectively. Our qualitative and quantitative study of the mass profile shape shows, for the first time, direct and clear observational evidence for the universality of the total mass distribution in clusters. The mass profiles scaled in units of R200 and M200 nearly coincide, with a dispersion of less than 15% at 0.1 R200 .T hec200−M200 relation is consistent with the predictions of numerical simulations for a ΛCDM cosmology, taking into account the measurement errors and expected intrinsic scatter. Our results provide further strong evidence in favour of the Cold Dark Matter cosmological scenario and show that dark matter collapse is well understood, at least down to the cluster scale.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3e2bd28127d12a8777bb00a671c7def0bb4b5d01

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Citations in the corpus

Weighing simulated galaxy clusters using lensing and X-ray (2009, methodology): “…consists of measuring the concentration-mass relation of clusters and of comparing Article published by EDP Sciences Page 1 of 23 it with the theoretical predictions (e.g. Pointecouteau et al. 2005; Vikhlinin et al. 2005; Buote et al. 2007; Schmidt & Allen 2007; Comerford & Natarajan 2007).”
Galaxy cluster masses without non-baryonic dark matter (2005, unknown): “The newest results from XMM–Newton reveal that the mass profiles of X-ray clusters show a steady rise out to the limit of X-ray observations (Pointecouteau et al. 2005) and do not show the convergent behaviour of MOND isothermal spheres.”
INTRACLUSTER MEDIUM ENTROPY PROFILES FOR A CHANDRA ARCHIVAL SAMPLE OF GALAXY CLUSTERS (2009, methodology): “The parametric models used in Pointecouteau et al. (2005) to fit the radial surface-brightness data were a double β-model, a β-model modified to allow for more centrally concentrated gas densities, and a triple β-model with all components having a common β value.”
Planck intermediate results: V. Pressure profiles of galaxy clusters from the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (2012, unknown): “Beyond global properties, similarity of shape in cluster radial quantities has long been shown in X-ray observations (e.g., Arnaud et al. 2001; Pointecouteau et al. 2005; Vikhlinin et al. 2006; Croston et al. 2008; Arnaud et al. 2010), in the optical (e.g., Rines & Diaferio 2006; Wojtak & Lokas…”
X-ray spectroscopy of galaxy clusters: studying astrophysical processes in the largest celestial laboratories (2009, methodology): “11 Upper left Mass profiles for a sample of regular clusters with a range of temperatures derived from observations with XMM-Newton (Pointecouteau et al. 2005).”
Dark matter in elliptical galaxies — II. Estimating the mass within the virial radius (2004, background): “…and its gradient, and unfortunately, even with the two new generation X-ray telescopesXMM-Newton andChandra, it is difficult to achieve such measurements beyond half the virial radius for galaxy clusters (Pointecouteau et al. 2005; Vikhlinin et al. 2005), and even much less for elliptical galaxies.”
ERRATUM: “CHANDRA SAMPLE OF NEARBY RELAXED GALAXY CLUSTERS: MASS, GAS FRACTION, AND MASS–TEMPERATURE RELATION” (2006, ApJ, 640, 691) (2005, methodology): “A similar conclusion was reached by Pointecouteau et al. (2005) from the XMM-Newton analysis of 10 clusters.”
Gas entropy in a representative sample of nearby X-ray galaxy clusters (REXCESS): relationship to gas mass fraction (2009, background): “…a concentrationc500 = 3.2 and gas in hydrostatic equilibrium in the cluster potential with a density profile identical to that of the dark matter. derived from the total mass profiles of the morphologically regular sample of Pointecouteau et al. (2005)8, normalised toM500 estimated from Eqn.”
Temperature profiles of a representative sample of nearby X-ray galaxy clusters (2006, background): “…in the underlying gravitational mass distribution (such as has already been seen in the X-ray mass profiles of morphologically relaxed clusters, e.g., Pointecouteau et al. 2005), and similarity in the entropy of the ICM (such as has been seen by e.g., Ponman et al. 2003; Pratt et al. 2006).”
GALAXY CLUSTERS IDENTIFIED FROM THE SDSS DR6 AND THEIR PROPERTIES (2009, unknown): “…as a function of redshift in the real background for input richness ofNin = 8 (the open circle), 12 (the open square), 16 (the black triangle), and 20 (the black square) assuming σz = 0.03(1 + z). dius is adopted to be 0.25 Mpc (for clusters with masses of ∼1014 M⊙; see Pointecouteau et al. 2005).”
The dark matter haloes of massive, relaxed galaxy clusters observed with Chandra (2006, methodology): “The results for higher mass systems are drawn from the previous studies of Pointecouteau et al. (2005) and Vikhlinin et al. (2006) and are in good overall agreement with the present work.”
Galaxy cluster X-ray luminosity scaling relations from a representative local sample (REXCESS) (2008, methodology): “…is now converging evidence that the total mass density profiles of galaxy clusters and groups scale quasi-self-similarly with a mass dependence that is in good agreement with predictions from numerical simulations (eg., Pointecouteau et al. 2005; Vikhlinin et al. 2006; Gastaldello et al. 2007).”
The observed concentration–mass relation for galaxy clusters (2007, background): “…Abell 3558 0.048 LOSVD 1.9+4.0−1.2 9.0 +0.3 −2.3 2.6 +5.1 −1.6 12.1 +3.0 −4.2 Łokas et al. (2006) X-ray 4.0± 0.2 5.3± 0.3 Xu et al. (2001) Abell 2717 0.049 X-ray 4.6± 0.3 1.510 ± 0.089 6.0± 0.3 1.839 ± 0.122 Gastaldello et al. (2006) X-ray 4.21 ± 0.25 1.57 ± 0.19 5.58 ± 0.32 1.92 ± 0.25…”
The structural and scaling properties of nearby galaxy clusters. II. The M-T relation (2005, methodology): “In a recent paper (Pointecouteau et al. 2005, hereafter, Paper I), we measured the integrated mass profiles of ten relaxed, nearby clusters observed with XMM-Newton.”