The Nearest Neighbor Alignment of Cluster X-Ray Isophotes
Abstract
We examine the orientations of rich galaxy cluster X-ray isophotes with respect to their rich nearest neighbors using existing samples of Abell cluster position angles measured from Einstein and ROSAT observations. We study a merged subset of these samples using updated and improved positions and redshifts for Abell/ACO clusters. We find high confidence for alignment, which increases as nearest neighbor distance is restricted. We conclude that there is a strong alignment signal in all this data, consistent with gravitational instability acting on Gaussian perturbation.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- February 2002
- DOI:
- 10.1086/324278
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/0102218
- Bibcode:
- 2002ApJ...565..849C
- Keywords:
-
- Galaxies: Clusters: General;
- Cosmology: Large-Scale Structure of Universe;
- X-Rays: Galaxies: Clusters;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Moderate revisions, including additional test for systematic error. Conclusions unchanged. Accepted for publication in ApJ