The Birmingham-CfA cluster scaling Project – I. Gas fraction and the M-Tx relation

By A. Sanderson, Trevor J. Ponman, A. Finoguenov, E. Lloyd-Davies, UK M.MarkevitchU.Birmingham, Mpe, Cfa, U. Michigan, U. Illinois. 2003

161 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We have assembled a large sample of virialized systems, comprising 66 galaxy clusters, groups and elliptical galaxies with high-quality X-ray data. To each system we have fitted analytical profiles describing the gas density and temperature variation with radius, corrected for the effects of central gas cooling. We present an analysis of the scaling properties of these systems and focus in this paper on the gas distribution and M‐T X relation. In addition to clusters and groups, our sample includes two early-type galaxies, carefully selected to avoid contamination from group or cluster X-ray emission. We compare the properties of these objects with those of more massive systems and find evidence for a systematic difference between galaxy-sized haloes and groups of a similar temperature. We derive a mean logarithmic slope of the M‐T X relation within R200 of 1.84 ± 0.06, although there is some evidence of a gradual steepening in the M‐T X relation, with decreasing mass. We recover a similar slope using two additional methods of calculating the mean temperature. Repeating the analysis with the assumption of isothermality, we find the slope changes only slightly, to 1.89 ± 0.04, but the normalization is increased by 30 per cent. Correspondingly, the mean gas fraction within R200 changes from (0.13 ± 0.01) h −3/2 70 to (0.11 ± 0.01) h −3/2 70 , for the isothermal case, with the smaller fractional change reflecting different behaviour between hot and cool systems. There is a strong correlation between the gas fraction within 0.3R200 and temperature. This reflects the strong (5.8σ ) trend between the gas density slope parameter, β, and temperature, which has been found in previous work. These findings are interpreted as evidence for self-similarity breaking from galaxy feedback processes, active galactic nuclei heating or possibly gas cooling. We discuss the implications of our results in the context of a hierarchical structure formation scenario.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Global and Planetary Change, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c5f0feba9a6480f4f9b4d65861e85cca1095c887

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Citations in the corpus

Simulations of AGN Feedback in Galaxy Clusters and Groups: Impact on Gas Fractions and the LX-T Scaling Relation (2008, methodology): “Also shown are gas fractions we computed from the gas density and temperature profile parameters given in Sanderson et al. (2003).”
The structural and scaling properties of nearby galaxy clusters. II. The M-T relation (2005, methodology): “…Ettori et al. 2002; Castillo-Morales & Schindler 2003); or if this is true only in the high mass regime (kT ∼> 4 keV), with a steepening at lower mass (Nevalainen et al. 2000; Xu et al. 2001; Finoguenov et al. 2001); or even if the slope is higher over the entire mass range (Sanderson et al. 2003).”
Tracing cosmic evolution with clusters of galaxies (2004, background): “…in the radial range from ,rc to ,3rc, with bfit<2/3 and rc,0.1rG giving the best fits for rich clusters sJones and Forman, 1984d and a possible trend toward lower b values in poorer clusters sHorner et al., 1999; Helsdon and Ponman, 2000; Finoguenov, Reiprich, et al., 2001; Sanderson et al., 2003d.”
The Integrated Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect as a Superior Method for Measuring the Mass of Clusters of Galaxies (2005, background): “Historically, cluster gas mass has often been deduced from the X-ray temperature using an empirical relation between mass and spectral temperature with relatively small scatter for highmass clusters (e.g., Sanderson et al. 2003).”
The Birmingham-CfA cluster scaling project - III. Entropy and similarity in galaxy systems (2003, background): “In the present, and companion papers, Sanderson et al. (2003) (Paper I) and Sanderson & Ponman (2003) (Paper II), we examine scaling properties derived from the largest sample of virialized systems with resolved X-ray temperature profiles yet assembled.”
Images, Structural Properties, and Metal Abundances of Galaxy Clusters Observed with Chandra ACIS-I at 0.1 < z < 1.3 (2007, background): “There are many examples of cluster properties deviating from self similarity (e.g. Markevitch 1998; Ponman et al. 1999; Sanderson et al. 2003), but it remains a useful baseline model, and departures from self-similarity provide useful clues to non-gravitational processes that should be incorporated…”
X‐ray properties of galaxy clusters and groups from a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation (2003, background): “Although this is quite expected, as long as non–gravitational effects are negligible, it conflicts with the recent results by Ponman et al. (2003).”
ERRATUM: “CHANDRA SAMPLE OF NEARBY RELAXED GALAXY CLUSTERS: MASS, GAS FRACTION, AND MASS–TEMPERATURE RELATION” (2006, ApJ, 640, 691) (2005, background): “A tight relation between the cluster temperature and total mass is expected on theoretical grounds, which is indeed observed, at least for the hydrostatic mass estimates (Nevalainen et al. 2000; Horner et al. 1999; Finoguenov et al. 2001; Xu et al. 2001; Sanderson et al. 2003).”
LoCuSS: the connection between brightest cluster galaxy activity, gas cooling and dynamical disturbance of X‐ray cluster cores (2009, background): “…between the X-ray/BCG offset and the cluster mean temperature or total mass, which might otherwise account for such a trend with fgas (cf. Sanderson et al. 2003; Vikhlinin et al. 2006) All of the five clusters statistically consistent with having gas fraction values in excess of the…”
K-Band Properties of Galaxy Clusters and Groups: Luminosity Function, Radial Distribution, and Halo Occupation Number (2004, methodology): “We therefore assemble our sample from several existing X-ray cluster samples (Mohr et al. 1999; Reiprich & Böhringer 2002; Finoguenov et al. 2001; Sanderson et al. 2003; David et al. 1993; O’Hara et al. 2004) and use measured TX (i.e., not inferred from X-ray luminosity or other observables) to…”
Chemical enrichment of the intracluster and intergalactic medium in a hierarchical galaxy formation model (2003, result): “These results were confirmed by Sanderson et al. (2003) in a recent study of 66 clusters and groups with X-ray data.”
X-Ray and Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect Measurements of the Gas Mass Fraction in Galaxy Clusters (2006, background): “…mean gas mass fraction results for other cluster samples are available in the literature (e.g., Evrard 1997; Mohr et al. 1999; Ettori et al. 2003; Sanderson et al. 2003), the detailed comparisons with our results are non-trivial as they are often calculated at different radii and assume…”
Scaling Properties of a Complete X-ray Selected Galaxy Group Sample (2014, background): “Several independent analyses have found that the fraction of gas in galaxy clusters decreases when moving toward lower mass systems (e.g., Sanderson et al. 2003; Vikhlinin et al. 2006; Gastaldello et al. 2007; Pratt et al. 2009).”
The GEMS project: X-ray analysis and statistical properties of the group sample (2004, background): “On the other hand, a number of studies (e.g. Finoguenov, Reiprich & Böhringer 2001) find that the M -TX relation has a slope steeper than 1.5, and Sanderson et al. (2003) find observational evidence, by comparing X-ray derived masses with the results obtained from simple scaling formulae, that a…”
Diffuse Radio Emission from Galaxy Clusters (2019, background): “Most of the mass, ∼ 80%, is in the form of dark matter (e.g., Blumenthal et al. 1984; White & Fabian 1995; Jones & Forman 1999; Arnaud & Evrard 1999; Sanderson et al. 2003; Vikhlinin et al. 2006).”
CHANDRA STUDIES OF THE X-RAY GAS PROPERTIES OF GALAXY GROUPS (2008, unknown): “There had been a lot of work on the cluster M −T relation before the Chandra and XMM-Newton era (e.g., Finoguenov et al. 2001; Sanderson et al. 2003).”