With Australia Telescope Compact Array observations, we detect a highly elongated Mpc-scale diffuse radio source on the eastern periphery of the Bullet cluster 1E0657-55.8, which we argue has the positional, spectral and polarimetric characteristics of a radio relic. This powerful relic (2.3+/-0.1 x 10^25 W Hz^-1) consists of a bright northern bulb and a faint linear tail. The bulb emits 94% of the observed radio flux and has the highest surface brightness of any known relic. Exactly coincident with the linear tail we find a sharp X-ray surface brightness edge in the deep Chandra image of the cluster -- a signature of a shock front in the hot intracluster medium (ICM), located on the opposite side of the cluster to the famous bow shock. This new example of an X-ray shock coincident with a relic further supports the hypothesis that shocks in the outer regions of clusters can form relics via diffusive shock (re-)acceleration. Intriguingly, our new relic suggests that seed electrons for reacceleration are coming from a local remnant of a radio galaxy, which we are lucky to catch before its complete disruption. If this scenario, in which a relic forms when a shock crosses a well-defined region of the ICM polluted with aged relativistic plasma -- as opposed to the usual assumption that seeds are uniformly mixed in the ICM -- is also the case for other relics, this may explain a number of peculiar properties of peripheral relics.
The recent paper by Jeltema & Profumo(2014) claims that contributions from ion{K}{18} and ion{Cl}{17} lines can explain the unidentified emission line found by Bulbul et al 2014 and also by Boyarsky et al, 2014a, 2014b. We show that their analysis relies upon incorrect atomic data and inconsistent spectroscopic modeling. We address these points and summarize in the appendix the correct values for the relevant atomic data from AtomDB.
We present new deep, high-resolution radio images of the diffuse minihalo in the cool core of the galaxy cluster RX J1720.1+2638. The images have been obtained with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope at 317, 617 and 1280 MHz and with the Very Large Array at 1.5, 4.9 and 8.4 GHz, with angular resolutions ranging from 1 to 10. This represents the best radio spectral and imaging dataset for any minihalo. Most of the radio flux of the minihalo arises from a bright central component with a maximum radius of ~80 kpc. A fainter tail of emission extends out from the central component to form a spiral-shaped structure with a length of ~230 kpc, seen at frequencies 1.5 GHz and below. We find indication of a possible steepening of the total radio spectrum of the minihalo at high frequencies. Furthermore, a spectral index image shows that the spectrum of the diffuse emission steepens with the increasing distance along the tail. A striking spatial correlation is observed between the minihalo emission and two cold fronts visible in the Chandra X-ray image of this cool core. These cold fronts confine the minihalo, as also seen in numerical simulations of minihalo formation by sloshing-induced turbulence. All these observations favor the hypothesis that the radio emitting electrons in cluster cool cores are produced by turbulent reacceleration.
We detect a weak unidentified emission line at E=(3.55-3.57)+/-0.03 keV in a stacked XMM spectrum of 73 galaxy clusters spanning a redshift range 0.01-0.35. MOS and PN observations independently show the presence of the line at consistent energies. When the full sample is divided into three subsamples (Perseus, Centaurus+Ophiuchus+Coma, and all others), the line is significantly detected in all three independent MOS spectra and the PN all others spectrum. It is also detected in the Chandra spectra of Perseus with the flux consistent with XMM (though it is not seen in Virgo). However, it is very weak and located within 50-110eV of several known faint lines, and so is subject to significant modeling uncertainties. On the origin of this line, we argue that there should be no atomic transitions in thermal plasma at this energy. An intriguing possibility is the decay of sterile neutrino, a long-sought dark matter particle candidate. Assuming that all dark matter is in sterile neutrinos with m_s=2E=7.1 keV, our detection in the full sample corresponds to a neutrino decay mixing angle sin^2(2theta)=7e-11, below the previous upper limits. However, based on the cluster masses and distances, the line in Perseus is much brighter than expected in this model. This appears to be because of an anomalously bright line at E=3.62 keV in Perseus, possibly an Ar XVII dielectronic recombination line, although its flux would be 30 times the expected value and physically difficult to understand. In principle, such an anomaly might explain our line detection in other subsamples as well, though it would stretch the line energy uncertainties. Another alternative is the above anomaly in the Ar line combined with the nearby 3.51 keV K line also exceeding expectation by factor 10-20. Confirmation with Chandra and Suzaku, and eventually Astro-H, are required to determine the nature of this new line.(ABRIDGED)
Cool cores of some galaxy clusters exhibit faint radio minihalos. Their origin is unclear; their study has been limited by their small number. We undertook a systematic search for minihalos in a large sample of X-ray luminous clusters with high-quality radio data. In this paper, we report four new minihalos (A 478, ZwCl 3146, RXJ 1532.9+3021 and A 2204), and five candidates, found in the reanalyzed archival Very Large Array observations. The radio luminosities of our minihalos and candidates are in the range $10^{23-25}$ W Hz$^{-1}$ at 1.4 GHz, consistent with this type of radio sources. Their sizes (40-160 kpc in radius) are somewhat smaller than those of the previously known minihalos. We combine our new detections with previously known minihalos, obtaining a total sample of 21 objects, and briefly compare the cluster radio properties to the average X-ray temperature and the total masses estimated from Planck. We find that nearly all clusters hosting minihalos are hot and massive. Beyond that, there is no clear correlation between the minihalo radio power and cluster temperature or mass (in contrast with the giant radio halos found in cluster mergers, whose radio luminosity correlates with the cluster mass). Chandra X-ray images indicate gas sloshing in the cool cores of most of our clusters, with minihalos contained within the sloshing regions in many of them. This supports the hypothesis that radio-emitting electrons are reaccelerated by sloshing. Advection of relativistic electrons by the sloshing gas may also play a role in the formation of the less-extended minihalos.
Merging clusters of galaxies are unique in their power to directly probe and place limits on the self-interaction cross-section of dark matter. Detailed observations of several merging clusters have shown the intracluster gas to be displaced from the centroids of dark matter and galaxy density by ram pressure, while the latter components are spatially coincident, consistent with collisionless dark matter. This has been used to place upper limits on the dark matter particle self-inteaction cross-section of order 1 cm^2/g. The cluster Abell 520 has been seen as a possible exception. We revisit A520 presenting new HST ACS mosaic images and a Magellan image set. We perform a detailed weak lensing analysis and show that the weak lensing mass measurements and morphologies of the core galaxy-filled structures are mostly in good agreement with previous works. There is however one significant difference -- we do not detect the previously claimed dark core that contains excess mass with no significant galaxy overdensity at the location of the X-ray plasma. This peak has been suggested to be indicative of a large self-interaction cross-section for dark matter (at least ~5 sigma larger than the upper limit of 0.7 cm^2/g determined by observations of the Bullet Cluster). We find no such indication and instead find that the mass distribution of A520, after subtraction of the X-ray plasma mass, is in good agreement with the luminosity distribution of the cluster galaxies. We conclude that A520 shows no evidence to contradict the collisionless dark matter scenario.
It has long been suggested that helium nuclei in the intracluster plasma can sediment in the cluster gravitational potential well. Some theoretical estimates for the cores of relaxed clusters predict an excess of helium abundance by up to a factor of a few over its primordial value. The intracluster helium abundance cannot be measured directly. This presents a significant source of uncertainty for cosmological tests based on the X-ray derived cluster quantities, such as the gas mass, total mass, and gas mass fraction, all of which depend on the assumed helium abundance. We point out that cluster distances derived by combining the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) and X-ray data also depend on the helium abundance. This dependence can be used to measure the abundance, provided the distance is known independently. For example, if one adopts the WMAP H_0 value, then the recent H_0 measurement by Bonamente and collaborators, derived from SZ data on 38 clusters assuming a primordial helium abundance, corresponds to an abundance excess by a factor of 1.9+-0.8 within r~1 Mpc (using only their statistical errors). This shows that interesting accuracy is within reach. We also briefly discuss how the SZ and X-ray cluster data can be combined to resolve the helium abundance dependence for the d_a(z) cosmological test.
When galaxy clusters collide, they generate shock fronts in the hot intracluster medium. Observations of these shocks can provide valuable information on the merger dynamics and physical conditions in the cluster plasma, and even help constrain the nature of dark matter. To study shock fronts, one needs an X-ray telescope with high angular resolution (such as Chandra), and be lucky to see the merger from the right angle and at the right moment. As of this writing, only a handful of merger shock fronts have been discovered and confirmed using both X-ray imaging and gas temperature data -- those in 1E0657-56, A520, A754, and two fronts in A2146. A few more are probable shocks awaiting temperature profile confirmation -- those in A521, RXJ1314-25, A3667, A2744, and Coma. The highest Mach number is 3 in 1E0657-56, while the rest has M=1.6-2. Interestingly, all these relatively weak X-ray shocks coincide with sharp edges in their host clusters synchrotron radio halos (except in A3667, where it coincides with the distinct radio relic, and A2146, which does not have radio data yet). This is contrary to the common wisdom that weak shocks are inefficient particle accelerators, and may shed light on the mechanisms of relativistic electron production in astrophysical plasmas.
We present an analysis of a 72 ks Chandra observation of the double cluster Abell 1644 (z=0.047). The X-ray temperatures indicate the masses are M500=2.6+/-0.4 x10^{14} h^{-1} M_sun for the northern subcluster and M500=3.1+/-0.4 x10^{14} h^{-1} M_sun for the southern, main cluster. We identify a sharp edge in the radial X-ray surface brightness of the main cluster, which we find to be a cold front, with a jump in temperature of a factor of ~3. This edge possesses a spiral morphology characteristic of core gas sloshing around the cluster potential minimum. We present observational evidence, supported by hydrodynamic simulations, that the northern subcluster is the object which initiated the core gas sloshing in the main cluster at least 700 Myr ago. We discuss reheating of the main clusters core gas via two mechanisms brought about by the sloshing gas: first, the release of gravitational potential energy gained by the cores displacement from the potential minimum, and second, a dredging inwards of the outer, higher entropy cluster gas along finger-shaped streams. We find the available gravitational potential energy is small compared to the energy released by the cooling gas in the core.
