Chandra Observations of Abell 2029: No Cooling Flow and a Steep Abundance Gradient

We have obtained high spatial resolution temperature and abundance profiles for the galaxy cluster Abell 2029 with the Chandra ACIS-S instrument. Our observations reveal that the spectra are well fitted by a single-phase gas in each annulus. While the temperature of the intracluster medium drops from ~9 keV at 3' (260 h^-1₇₀ kpc) to 3 keV in the central 5" (5 h^-1₇₀ kpc) of the cluster, there is no evidence of gas emitting at temperatures below 3 keV. The addition of a cooling flow component does not improve the fits, despite previous claims for a massive cooling flow. There is also no evidence of excess absorption above the Galactic N_H-value. We also observe a steep Fe abundance gradient, such that Z_Fe>~2 Z_solar (assuming meteoritic solar Fe abundance) in the core, consistent with significant enrichment from Fe-rich Type Ia supernovae in the cD galaxy. The Fe abundance drops to ~0.5 Z_solar at 3' (260 h^-1₇₀ kpc), in good agreement with previous BeppoSAX measurements. The high-resolution image reveals neither a strong central point source nor any filamentary structure related to a cooling flow or a merger. The absence of a strong merger signature argues against the creation of the wide-angle-tailed radio source morphology in a merger event.