Abundance Gradients and the Role of Supernovae in M87

Abstract

We make a detailed measurement of the metal abundance profiles and metal abundance ratios of the inner core of M87/Virgo observed by XMM-Newton during the performance verification phase. We use multitemperature models for the inner regions, and we compare the plasma codes APEC and MEKAL. We confirm the strong heavy-element gradient previously found by ASCA and BeppoSAX, but also find a significant increase in light elements, in particular O. This fact, together with the constant O/Fe ratio in the inner 9′, indicates an enhancement of contribution in the core of the cluster, not only by Type la supernovae but also by Type II supernovae.