The relationship between cooling flows and metallicity measurements for X-ray-luminous clusters

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Abstract

We explore the relationship between the metallicity of the intracluster gas in clusters of galaxies, determined by X-ray spectroscopy, and the presence of cooling flows. Using ASCA spectra and ROSAT images, we demonstrate a clear segregation between the metallicities of clusters with and without cooling flows. On average, cooling-flow clusters have an emission-weighted metallicity a factor ∼1.8 times higher than that of non-cooling-flow systems. We suggest that this is caused by the presence of metallicity gradients in the cooling-flow clusters, coupled with the sharply peaked X-ray surface brightness profiles of these systems. Non-cooling-flow clusters have much flatter X-ray surface brightness distributions and are thought to have undergone recent merger events, which may have mixed the central high-metallicity gas with the surrounding less metal-rich material. We find no evidence for evolution in the emission-weighted metallicities of clusters within z ∼ 0.3.

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Allen, S. W., & Fabian, A. C. (1998). The relationship between cooling flows and metallicity measurements for X-ray-luminous clusters. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 297(3). https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-8711.1998.01738.x

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