Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2009-11-05
Astrophys.J.701:122,2009
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
15 pages, 8 figures
Scientific paper
10.1088/0004-637X/701/1/122
Identification of Abell 3120 as a galaxy cluster has recently been questioned with alternative suggestions including: a fossil remnant of a group merger, non-thermal emission from a radio galaxy, and projected emission from of a filamentary string of galaxies. We report on our analysis of the Chandra observation and evaluate these hypotheses based on our results. Abell 3120 shows X-ray emission extending 158 kpc, well beyond the central galaxy. The spatial distribution of X-rays in the core more closely follows the radio emission showing a jet-like structure extending to the north that is misaligned with the stellar light distribution of the central galaxy. At larger radii the X-ray emission is aligned with the SE-NW running axis of the galaxy distribution in the cluster core. Modeling the X-ray spectrum excludes purely non-thermal emission. The emission weighted temperature is 1.93 - 2.19 keV and the 0.3 - 10 keV luminosity is 1.23$\times10^{43}$ ergs s$^{-1}$. Abell 3120 appears to be a poor cluster with Virgo and MKW 4 as peers. The best fitting model consists of a thermal component and a second component that may be either thermal or non-thermal, with luminosity 25% of the total X-ray luminosity. While, a more detailed spatial-spectral search failed to detect a central AGN, there is some evidence for an extended hard X-ray component. Cooler gas, 1.28 - 1.80 was detected in the central 20 kpc. The second thermal component marginally requires a higher redshift, >0.12, which may be due to a second cluster in the rich surrounding environment consisting of nearly a thousand catalogued galaxies.
Finoguenov Alexis
Henriksen Mark
No associations
LandOfFree
The X-ray View of Abell 3120 does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with The X-ray View of Abell 3120, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The X-ray View of Abell 3120 will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-418316