We report the first Chandra detection of emission out to the virial radius in the cluster Abell 1835 at z=0.253. Our analysis of the soft X-ray surface brightness shows that emission is present out to a radial distance of 10 arcmin or 2.4 Mpc, and th
e temperature profile has a factor of ten drop from the peak temperature of 10 keV to the value at the virial radius. We model the Chandra data from the core to the virial radius and show that the steep temperature profile is not compatible with hydrostatic equilibrium of the hot gas, and that the gas is convectively unstable at the outskirts. A possible interpretation of the Chandra data is the presence of a second phase of warm-hot gas near the clusters virial radius that is not in hydrostatic equilibrium with the clusters potential. The observations are also consistent with an alternative scenario in which the gas is significantly clumped at large radii.
Context: Very few z > 1.5 clusters of galaxies are known. It is important to study the properties of galaxies in these clusters and the ICM and, further, to cross-check the reliability of the various mass estimates. This will help to clarify the proc
ess of structure formation and how distant clusters may be used to constrain cosmology. AIMS: We present a 84 ks Chandra observation of IRC-0218A, a cluster of galaxies inferred by the presence of a galaxy overdensity in the infrared at a redshift of 1.62 and associated with some XMM emission Methods: Spatial analysis of the Chandra X-ray photon distribution. Results: The Chandra observation of IRC-0218A appears to be entirely dominated by a point-source located at the centroid of the MIR galaxy density. In addition, we detect weak extended emission (2.3 sigma) out to a radius of 25 with a flux of ~ 3 10E-15 erg/s/cm2 in the [0.3-2]keV band. Assuming that clusters evolve similarly, we infer a virial mass of M200 =7.7+/-3.8 10E13Mo. This is marginally compatible with our current estimate of the cluster dynamical mass (based on 10 redshifts), although there is no evidence that the galaxy peculiar velocities correspond to the motions of a virialized structure. The stellar mass enclosed in the inferred X-ray virial radius is estimated to 1-2 10E12 Mo. We provide a detailed account of 28 X-ray point-sources detected in the field.
