Iron abundance in galaxy clusters.
Abstract
Up to now, there are 22 clusters of galaxies for which reliable measures of both gas temperature and iron line equivalent width are available. The authors derive the variation of the iron line equivalent width with the temperature. The cluster iron abundance can be deduced from the comparison between the measurements and the computations. Its value appears to be universal, 0.53±0.03 (1σ) solar value. Gas masses in clusters, and thus iron masses are shown to vary as N02.4±0.6, where N0 is the central number of galaxies. It is confirmed that gas masses are proportional to virial masses, with Mvirial = 10 Mgas = 1.5×104Miron. Implications of such relations in terms of observable gas quantities, galaxy formation and iron origin are briefly discussed.
- Publication:
-
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- March 1985
- Bibcode:
- 1985A&A...144..431R
- Keywords:
-
- Abundance;
- Galactic Clusters;
- Intergalactic Media;
- Iron;
- Metallicity;
- Continuous Spectra;
- Ionization;
- Line Spectra;
- Mass;
- Recombination Reactions;
- X Ray Spectroscopy;
- Astrophysics