Radial Distributions of the Temperature and Metal Abundances in the Ophiuchus Cluster of Galaxies

We report on the first result concerning the Ophiuchus cluster of galaxies observed with ASCA during the performance-verification phase. The obtained image in the energy range of 0.7--10 keV is nearly circular, and the peak of the X-ray surface brightness is coincident with the position of the cD galaxy. We analyzed the ASCA GIS data within a 13.8' radius of the cluster center while considering the energy-dependent flux-contaminated effect due to ASCA X-ray telescope. This data can be well explained with the isothermal beta model, in which the density profile is expressed with a beta profile of r_core=3.8' and beta =0.62, and the temperature and metal abundances are constant at kT=9.8 keV and Z=0.24 Z_solar . The central excess density profile obtained with Einstein HRI is also consistent with the ASCA GIS data.