No Arabic abstract
We present an investigation of the dynamical state of the cluster A262. Existing optical line of sight velocities for select cluster galaxies have been augmented by new data obtained with the Automated Multi-Object Spectrograph at Lick Observatory. We find evidence for a virialized early-type population distinct from a late-type population infalling from the Pisces-Perseus supercluster ridge. We also report on a tertiary population of low luminosity galaxies whose velocity dispersion distinguishes them from both the early and late-type galaxies. We supplement our investigation with an analysis of archival X-ray data. A temperature is determined using ASCA GIS data and a gas profile is derived from ROSAT HRI data. The increased statistics of our sample results in a picture of A262 with significant differences from earlier work. A previously proposed solution to the beta-problem in A262 in which the gas temperature is significantly higher than the galaxy temperature is shown to result from using too low a velocity dispersion for the early-type galaxies. Our data present a consistent picture of A262 in which there is no beta-problem, and the gas and galaxy temperature are roughly comparable. There is no longer any requirement for extensive galaxy-gas feedback to drastically overheat the gas with respect to the galaxies. We also demonstrate that entropy-floor models can explain the recent discovery that the beta values determined by cluster gas and the cluster core radii are correlated.
We present new radio and X-ray observations of Abell 262. The X-ray residual image provides the first evidence of an X-ray tunnel in this system while the radio data reveal that the central radio source is more than three times larger than previously known. We find that the well-known cluster-center S-shaped radio source B2 0149+35 is surrounded by extended emission to the east and south-west. The south-western extension is co-spatial with the X-ray tunnel seen in our new Chandra images while the eastern extension shows three clumps of emission with the innermost coincident with a faint X-ray cavity. The outer two eastern radio extensions are coincident with a newly detected X-ray depression. We use the projected separation of the emission regions to estimate a lower limit of tau_rep=28 Myr to the outburst repetition timescale of the central AGN. The total energy input into the cluster over multiple outburst episodes is estimated to be 2.2x 10^{58} ergs, more than an order of magnitude larger than previously thought. The total AGN energy output determined from our new observations shows that the source should be capable of offsetting radiative cooling over several outburst episodes.
We present a Chandra observation of the cooling flow cluster Abell 262. Spectral fits show that the intracluster medium (ICM) in A262 cools by a factor of three from 2.7 keV to 0.9 keV at the cluster center. A mass deposition rate of Mdot = 19 +6/-5 Msun/yr is measured. Complex structure is found in the very inner regions of the cluster, including knots of emission and a clear deficit of emission to the east of the cluster center. The bright X-ray structures are located in the same regions as optical line emission, indicating that cooling to low temperatures has occurred in these regions. The X-ray deficit is spatially coincident with the eastern radio lobe associated with the active galactic nucleus hosted by the central cD galaxy. The region surrounding the X-ray hole is cool, and shows no evidence that it has been strongly shocked. This joins the ranks of other cooling flow clusters with Chandra-detected bubbles blown by central radio sources. This source is different than the other well-known cases, in that the radio source is orders of magnitude less luminous and has produced a much smaller bubble. Comparing the energy output of the radio source with the luminosity of the cooling gas shows that energy transferred to the ICM from the radio source is insufficient to offset the cooling flow unless the radio source is currently experiencing a less powerful than average outburst, and was more powerful in the past.
We present millimeter CO line emission observations of 12 galaxies within the Abell 262 cluster, together with L_FIR data, in the context of a possible molecular gas deficiency within the region of the cluster center. Several indications of the presence of such a deficiency are highlighted and connected to a model of cirrus-like cloud stripping. The model predicts a drop in the average 100 micron flux density of galaxies in the core of the cluster compared to the average 100 micron flux density in the outer regions, which is actually indicated in the IRAS data of the cluster members. This drop is explained by the decrease in the total hydrogen column density N(H) and, therefore, also includes a decrease in the molecular gas content. In addition to results for the global CO content of the galaxy sample, high-resolution interferometric CO(1-0) observations of one of the cluster members, UGC 1347, exemplify the spatial distribution of the molecular gas in a galaxy of the cluster. With these observations, it was possible to confirm the existence of a bright off-nuclear CO-emission source and to derive molecular masses and line ratios for this source and the nucleus.
Abell 2029 is one of the most studied clusters due to its proximity (z=0.07), its strong X-ray brightness and its giant cD galaxy which is one of the biggest stellar aggregates we know. We present here the first weak lensing mass reconstruction of this cluster made from a deep I-band image of 28.5x28.5 centered on the cluster cD galaxy. This preliminary result allows us already to show the shape similarities between the cD galaxy and the cluster itself, suggesting that they form actually a single structure. We find a lower estimate of the total mass of 1.8 10^14 h^-1 solar masses within a radius of 0.3 h^-1 Mpc. We finally compute the mass-to-cD-light ratio and its evolution as a function of scale.
We present results from a Chandra X-ray Observatory study of the field X-ray source population in the vicinity of the radio galaxy MRC 1138-262. Many serendipitous X-ray sources are detected in an area of 8x8 around the radio source and 90% are identified in our deep VLT images. The space density of such sources is higher than expected on the basis of the statistics of ROSAT and Chandra deep surveys. The most likely explanation is in terms of a concentration of AGN associated with the protocluster at z=2.16 which was found around the radio galaxy in previous studies. Two sources have a confirmed spectroscopic redshift close to that of the radio galaxy, and for three more sources other observations suggest that they are associated with the protocluster. Four of these five X-ray sources form, together with the radio galaxy, a filament in the plane of the sky. The direction of the filament is similar to that of the radio source axis, the large scale distribution of the other protocluster members, the 150 kpc-sized emission-line halo and the extended X-ray emission associated with the radio galaxy. The majority of optically identified X-ray sources in this field have properties consistent with type I AGN, a few could be soft, low luminosity galaxies, one is probably an obscured (type II) AGN and one is a star. These statistics are consistent with the results of deep X-ray surveys.