Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2005-07-19
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Advances in Space Research in press (proceedings of the COSPAR 2004 Assembly, Paris), 9 pages, 5 figures
Scientific paper
10.1016/j.asr.2005.01.096
Galaxy clusters with a dense cooling core exhibit a central increase in the metallicity of the intracluster medium. Recent XMM-Newton studies with detailed results on the relative abundances of several heavy elements show that the high central abundances are mostly due to the contribution from supernovae type Ia. The dominant source is the stellar population of the central cluster galaxy. With this identification of the origin of heavy elements and the observed rates of SN Ia in elliptical galaxies, the central abundance peak can be used as a diagnostic for the history of the cluster core region. We find for four nearby cooling core clusters that the enrichment times for the central peaks are larger than 6 - 10 Gyrs even for a higher SN Ia rate in the past. This points to an old age and a relatively quiet history of these cluster core regions. A detailed analysis of the element abundance ratios provides evidence that the SN Ia yields in the central cluster galaxies are more rich in intermediate mass elements, like Si and S, compared to the SN Ia models used to explain the heavy element enrichment in our Galaxy.
Böhringer Hans
Churazov Eugene
Finoguenov Alexis
Matsushita Kyoko
Xue Yifeng
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