The X-ray spectrm of the Coma Cluster of galaxies

Abstract

We present the HE AO 1 A-2 and OSO 8 observations of the Coma Cluster of galaxies in the 2-60 keV energy band. The spectrum is not well fitted by an isothermal bremsstrahlung model with an Fe line. To model the spectrum more accurately, we have performed fits of polytropic models and find that the gas is well fitted by an equation of state with polytropic index ranging between 1.38 and 1.6. This analysis reduces the total cluster mass by a factor of 3-5 below the optically derived virial mass. Using the best-fitting parameters, the gas is found to be a significant fraction (25%) of the total cluster mass. The Fe Ka line blend is strongly detected, from which we infer 0.18-0.36 solar abundance in the X-ray emitting gas. The Fe Kß line blend is also weakly detected. The spectrum is not consistent with the existence of a hard X-ray tail at the flux level reported by Bazzano et al. In addition, the HEAO 1 scanning mode data place strong constraints on possible contaminating sources in the region surrounding Coma.