No Arabic abstract
We have performed a multi-wavelength analysis of two galaxy cluster systems selected with the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) effect and composed of cluster pairs and an inter-cluster filament. We have focused on one pair of particular interest: A399-A401 at redshift z~0.073 seperated by 3 Mpc. We have also performed the first analysis of one lower significance newly associated pair: A21-PSZ2 G114.09-34.34 at z~0.094, separated by 4.2 Mpc. We have characterised the intra-cluster gas using the tSZ signal from Planck and, when this was possible, the galaxy optical and infra-red (IR) properties based on two photometric redshift catalogs: 2MPZ and WISExSCOS. From the tSZ data, we measured the gas pressure in the clusters and in the inter-cluster filaments. In the case of A399-A401, the results are in perfect agreement with previous studies and, using the temperature measured from the X-rays, we further estimate the gas density in the filament and find n0=4.3+-0.7x10^-4 cm-3. The optical and IR colour-colour and colour-magnitude analyses of the galaxies selected in the cluster system, together with their Star Formation Rate, show no segregation between galaxy populations, in the clusters and in the filament of A399-A401. Galaxies are all passive, early type, and red and dead. The gas and galaxy properties of this system suggest that the whole system formed at the same time and corresponds to a pre-merger, with a cosmic filament gas heated by the collapse. For the other cluster system, the tSZ analysis was performed and the pressure in the clusters and in the inter-cluster filament was constrained. However, the limited or nonexistent optical and IR data prevent us from concluding on the presence of an actual cosmic filament or from proposing a scenario.
It is a firm prediction of the concordance Cold Dark Matter (CDM) cosmological model that galaxy clusters live at the intersection of large-scale structure filaments. The thread-like structure of this cosmic web has been traced by galaxy redshift surveys for decades. More recently the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM) residing in low redshift filaments has been observed in emission and absorption. However, a reliable direct detection of the underlying Dark Matter skeleton, which should contain more than half of all matter, remained elusive, as earlier candidates for such detections were either falsified or suffered from low signal-to-noise ratios and unphysical misalignements of dark and luminous matter. Here we report the detection of a dark matter filament connecting the two main components of the Abell 222/223 supercluster system from its weak gravitational lensing signal, both in a non-parametric mass reconstruction and in parametric model fits. This filament is coincident with an overdensity of galaxies and diffuse, soft X-ray emission and contributes mass comparable to that of an additional galaxy cluster to the total mass of the supercluster. Combined with X-ray observations, we place an upper limit of 0.09 on the hot gas fraction, the mass of X-ray emitting gas divided by the total mass, in the filament.
We study the physical properties of three clusters of galaxies, selected from a BeppoSAX Wide Field Camera (WFC) survey. These sources are identified as 1RXS J153934.7-833535, 1RXS J160147.6-754507, and 1RXS J081232.3-571423 in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey catalogue. We obtained XMM-Newton follow-up observations for these three clusters. We fit single and multi-temperature models to spectra obtained from the EPIC-pn camera to determine the temperature, the chemical composition of the gas and their radial distribution. Since two observations are contaminated by a high soft-proton background, we develop a new method to estimate the effect of this background on the data. For the first time, we present the temperature and iron abundance of two of these three clusters. The iron abundance of 1RXS J153934.7-33535 decreases with radius. The fits to the XMM-Newton and Chandra data show that the radial temperature profile within 3 towards the centre either flattens or lowers. A Chandra image of the source suggests the presence of X-ray cavities. The gas properties in 1RXS J160147.6-754507 are consistent with a flat radial distribution of iron and temperature within 2 from the centre. 1RXS J081232.3-571423 is a relatively cool cluster with a temperature of about 3 keV. The radial temperature and iron profiles suggest that 1RXS J153934.7-833535 is a cool core cluster. The Chandra image shows substructure which points toward AGN feedback in the core. The flat radial profiles of the temperature and iron abundance in 1RXS J160147.6-754507 are similar to the profiles of non-cool-core clusters.
Morphology is often used to infer the state of relaxation of galaxy clusters. The regularity, symmetry, and degree to which a cluster is centrally concentrated inform quantitative measures of cluster morphology. The Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey with Hubble Space Telescope (CLASH) used weak and strong lensing to measure the distribution of matter within a sample of 25 clusters, 20 of which were deemed to be relaxed based on their X-ray morphology and alignment of the X-ray emission with the BCG. Towards a quantitative characterization of this important sample of clusters, we present uniformly estimated X-ray morphological statistics for all 25 CLASH clusters. We compare X-ray morphologies of CLASH clusters with those identically measured for a large sample of simulated clusters from the MUSIC-2 simulations, selected by mass. We confirm a threshold in X-ray surface brightness concentration of C>0.4 for cool-core clusters, where C is the ratio of X-ray emission inside 100 kpc/h70 compared to inside 500 kpc/h70. We report and compare morphologies of these clusters inferred from Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect (SZE) maps of the hot gas and in from projected mass maps based on strong and weak lensing. We find a strong agreement in alignments of the orientation of major axes for the lensing, X-ray, and SZE maps of nearly all of the CLASH clusters at radii of 500 kpc (approximately 0.5R500 for these clusters). We also find a striking alignment of clusters shapes at the 500 kpc scale, as measured with X-ray, SZE, and lensing, with that of the near-infrared stellar light at 10 kpc scales for the 20 relaxed clusters. This strong alignment indicates a powerful coupling between the cluster- and galaxy-scale galaxy formation processes.
(Abridged) We trace the interaction processes of galaxies at intermediate redshift by measuring the irregularity of their ionized gas kinematics, and investigate these irregularities as a function of the environment (cluster versus field) and of morphological type (spiral versus irregular). Our sample consists of 92 distant galaxies. 16 cluster (z~0.3 and z~0.5) and 29 field galaxies (mean z=0.44) of these have velocity fields with sufficient signal to be analyzed. We find that the fraction of galaxies that have irregular gas kinematics is remarkably similar in galaxy clusters and in the field at intermediate redshifts. The distribution of the field and cluster galaxies in (ir)regularity parameters space is also similar. On the other hand galaxies with small central concentration of light, that we see in the field sample, are absent in the cluster sample. We find that field galaxies at intermediate redshifts have more irregular velocity fields as well as more clumpy and less centrally concentrated light distributions than their local counterparts. Comparison with a SINS sample of 11 z ~ 2 galaxies shows that these distant galaxies have more irregular gas kinematics than our intermediate redshift cluster and field sample. We do not find a dependence of the irregularities in gas kinematics on morphological type. We find that two different indicators of star formation correlate with irregularity in the gas kinematics. More irregular gas kinematics, also more clumpy and less centrally concentrated light distributions of spiral field galaxies at intermediate redshifts in comparison to their local counterparts indicate that these galaxies are probably still in the process of building their disks via mechanisms such as accretion and mergers. On the other hand, they have less irregular gas kinematics compared to galaxies at z ~ 2.
We present measurements of 5-25 {mu}m emission features of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) with strong optical emission lines in a sample of 9 cool-core clusters of galaxies observed with the Infrared Spectrograph on board the Spitzer Space Telescope. These systems provide a view of dusty molecular gas and star formation, surrounded by dense, X-ray emitting intracluster gas. Past work has shown that BCGs in cool-core clusters may host powerful radio sources, luminous optical emission line systems, and excess UV, while BCGs in other clusters never show this activity. In this sample, we detect polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), extremely luminous, rotationally-excited molecular hydrogen line emission, forbidden line emission from ionized gas ([Ne II] and [Ne III]), and infrared continuum emission from warm dust and cool stars. We show here that these BCGs exhibit more luminous forbidden neon and H2 rotational line emission than star-forming galaxies with similar total infrared luminosities, as well as somewhat higher ratios of 70 {mu}m / 24 {mu}m luminosities. Our analysis suggests that while star formation processes dominate the heating of the dust and PAHs, a heating process consistent with suprathermal electron heating from the hot gas, distinct from star formation, is heating the molecular gas and contributing to the heating of the ionized gas in the galaxies. The survival of PAHs and dust suggests that dusty gas is somehow shielded from significant interaction with the X-ray gas.