Abell 3560, a galaxy cluster at the edge of a major merging event
Abstract
In this paper we study A3560, a rich cluster at the southern periphery of the A3558 complex, a chain of interacting clusters in the central part of the Shapley Concentration supercluster. From a ROSAT-PSPC map we find that the X-ray surface brightness distribution of A3560 is well described by two components, an elliptical King law and a more peaked and fainter structure, which has been modeled with a Gaussian. The main component, corresponding to the cluster, is elongated with the major axis pointing toward the A3558 complex. The second component, centered on the Dumb-bell galaxy which dominates the cluster, appears significantly offset (by ~ 0.15 h-1 Mpc) from the cluster X-ray centroid. From a Beppo-SAX observation we derive the radial temperature profile, finding that the temperature is constant (at kT ~ 3.7 keV) up to 8 arcmin, corresponding to 0.3 h-1 Mpc: for larger distances, the temperature significantly drops to kT ~ 1.7 keV. We analyze also temperature maps, dividing the cluster into 4 sectors and deriving the temperature profiles in each sector: we find that the temperature drop is more sudden in the sectors which point towards the A3558 complex. From VLA radio data, at 20 and 6 cm, we find a peculiar bright extended radio source (J1332-3308), composed of a core (centered on the northern component of the Dumb-bell galaxy), two lobes, a ``filament" and a diffuse component. The morphology of the source could be interpreted either by a strong interaction of the radio source with the intracluster medium or by the model of intermittency of the central engine.
- Publication:
-
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- December 2002
- DOI:
- 10.1051/0004-6361:20021366
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/0209399
- Bibcode:
- 2002A&A...396...65B
- Keywords:
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- X-rays: galaxies: clusters;
- galaxies: clusters: general;
- galaxies: clusters: individual: A3560;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 8 pages with encapsulated figures, A&