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Register a new userMass Distribution in Galaxy Cluster Cores
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Many processes within galaxy clusters, such as those believed to govern the onset of thermally unstable cooling and AGN feedback, are dependent upon local dynamical timescales. However, accurately mapping the mass distribution within individual clusters is challenging, particularly towards cluster centres where the total mass budget has substantial radially-dependent contributions from the stellar, gas, and dark matter components. In this paper we use a small sample of galaxy clusters with deep Chandra observations and good ancillary tracers of their gravitating mass at both large and small radii to develop a method for determining mass profiles that span a wide radial range and extend down into the central galaxy. We also consider potential observational pitfalls in understanding cooling in hot cluster atmospheres, and find tentative evidence for a relationship between the radial extent of cooling X-ray gas and nebular H-alpha emission in cool core clusters. Amongst this small sample we find no support for the existence of a central entropy floor, with the entropy profiles following a power-law profile down to our resolution limit.
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We present accurate photometric redshifts for galaxies observed by the Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH). CLASH observed 25 massive galaxy cluster cores with the Hubble Space Telescope in 16 filters spanning 0.2 - 1.7 $mu$m. Photometry in such crowded fields is challenging. Compared to our previously released catalogs, we make several improvements to the photometry, including smaller apertures, ICL subtraction, PSF matching, and empirically measured uncertainties. We further improve the Bayesian Photometric Redshift (BPZ) estimates by adding a redder elliptical template and by inflating the photometric uncertainties of the brightest galaxies. The resulting photometric redshift accuracies are dz/(1+z) $sim$ 0.8%, 1.0%, and 2.0% for galaxies with I-band F814W AB magnitudes $<$ 18, 20, and 23, respectively. These results are consistent with our expectations. They improve on our previously reported accuracies by a factor of 4 at the bright end and a factor of 2 at the faint end. Our new catalog includes 1257 spectroscopic redshifts, including 382 confirmed cluster members. We also provide stellar mass estimates. Finally, we include lensing magnification estimates of background galaxies based on our public lens models. Our new catalog of all 25 CLASH clusters is available via MAST. The analysis techniques developed here will be useful in other surveys of crowded fields, including the Frontier Fields and surveys carried out with J-PAS and JWST.
Determining the structure of galaxy clusters is essential for an understanding of large scale structure in the universe, and may hold important clues to the identity and nature of dark matter particles. Moreover, the core dark matter distribution may offer insight into the structure formation process. Unfortunately, cluster cores also tend to be the site of complicated astrophysics. X-ray imaging spectroscopy of relaxed clusters, a standard technique for mapping their dark matter distributions, is often complicated by the presence of their putative ``cooling flow gas, and the dark matter profile one derives for a cluster is sensitive to assumptions made about the distribution of this gas. Here we present a statistical analysis of these assumptions and their effect on our understanding of dark matter in galaxy clusters.
Galaxy cluster mass distributions offer an important test of the cold dark matter picture of structure formation, and may even contain clues about the nature of dark matter. X-ray imaging spectroscopy of relaxed systems can map cluster dark matter distributions, but are usually complicated by the presence of central cool components in the intracluster medium. Here we describe a statistically correct approach to distinguishing amongst simple alternative models of the cool component, and apply it to one cluster. We also present mass profiles and central density slopes for five clusters derived from Chandra data, and illustrate how assumptions about the cool component affect the resulting mass profiles. For four of these objects, we find that the central density profile (r < 200 h_50^-1 kpc) rho(r) = r^a with -2 < a < -1, for either of two models of the central cool component. These results are consistent with standard CDM predictions.
Cold Dark Matter (CDM) simulations predict a central cusp in the mass distribution of galaxies. This prediction is in stark contrast with observations of dwarf galaxies which show a central plateau or core in their density distribution. The proposed solutions to this core-cusp problem can be classified into two types. Either they invoke feedback mechanisms produced by the baryonic component of the galaxies, or they assume the properties of the dark matter (DM) particle to depart from the CDM hypothesis. Here we propose an alternative yet complementary explanation. We argue that cores are unavoidable in the self-gravitating systems of maximum entropy resulting from non-extensive statistical mechanics. Their structure follows from the Tsallis entropy, suitable for systems with long-range interactions. Strikingly, the mass density profiles predicted by such thermodynamic equilibrium match the observed cores without any adjustment or tuning. Thus, the principle of maximum Tsallis entropy explains the presence of cores in dwarf galaxies.
We present an Integral Field Unit survey of 73 galaxy clusters and groups with the VIsible Multi Object Spectrograph (VIMOS) on VLT. We exploit the data to determine the H$alpha$ gas dynamics on kpc-scales to study the feedback processes occurring within the dense cluster cores. We determine the kinematic state of the ionised gas and show that the majority of systems ($sim$ 2/3) have relatively ordered velocity fields on kpc scales that are similar to the kinematics of rotating discs and are decoupled from the stellar kinematics of the Brightest Cluster Galaxy. The majority of the H$alpha$ flux ($>$ 50%) is typically associated with these ordered kinematics and most systems show relatively simple morphologies suggesting they have not been disturbed by a recent merger or interaction. Approximately 20% of the sample (13/73) have disturbed morphologies which can typically be attributed to AGN activity disrupting the gas. Only one system shows any evidence of an interaction with another cluster member. A spectral analysis of the gas suggests that the ionisation of the gas within cluster cores is dominated by non stellar processes, possibly originating from the intracluster medium itself.
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