Shocks in Galaxy Cluster X-ray Temperature Images
Abstract
We present adaptively binned X-ray temperature maps for a sample of galaxy clusters created from joint spectral fitting to XMM-Newton and Chandra archival data. The overall distribution of temperature in a cluster is more tightly constrained for maps produced by joint fitting than from fits to individual spectra alone. Mach number distributions are generated from temperature gradients, providing insight into the magnitude of shocks within the cluster. Major mergers are expected to produce shock structure, tracing the formation history of galaxy clusters. Applying our shock finding method to simulated temperature maps created with the Enzo N-body + hydrodynamic adaptive mesh refinement cosmological code, we find that the underlying Mach number distribution is recovered from the temperature structure after applying our binning scheme. While the quality of temperature maps generated from joint spectral fitting strongly depends on reliable calibration between the different instruments, we find our method to be a promising probe of the temperature structure in cluster environments and potentially the merger history.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #217
- Pub Date:
- January 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AAS...21714914S