Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/208704

Title

Minor merger-induced cold fronts in Abell2142 and RXJ1720.1+2638

Author(s)

Owers, Matt S.;  Nulsen, Paul E. J.;  Couch, Warrick J.

Abstract

We present evidence for the existence of substructure in the "relaxed appearing" cold front clusters Abell2142 and RXJ1720.1+2638. The detection of these substructures was made possible by comprehensive multi-object optical spectroscopy obtained with the Hectospec and DEep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph instruments on the 6.5m MMT and 10m KeckII telescope, respectively. These observations produced 956 and 400 spectroscopically confirmed cluster members within a projected radius of 3Mpc from the centers of A2142 and RXJ1720.1+2638, respectively. The substructure manifests itself as local peaks in the spatial distribution of member galaxies and also as regions of localized velocity substructure. For both Abell2142 and RXJ1720.1+2638, we identify group-scale substructures which, when considering the morphology of the cold fronts and the time since pericentric passage of a perturber estimated from the cold front radii, could plausibly have perturbed the cluster cores and generated the cold fronts observed in Chandra images. The results presented here are consistent with cold fronts being the result of merger activity and with cold fronts in relaxed appearing clusters being due to minor merger activity.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies. Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing

Source

Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 741, no. 2 (Nov 2011), article no. 122

Publication year

2011

FOR Code(s)

0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences;  0305 Organic Chemistry;  0306 Physical Chemistry (Incl. Structural)

Keyword(s)

Abell 2142;  Cluster galaxies;  RXJ1720.1+2638;  X-ray galaxies

Publisher

Institute of Physics Publishing

ISSN

0004-637X

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/741/2/122

Copyright

Copyright © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. The American Astronomical Society does not allow institutions to archive either the accepted manuscript or the published version of the article. However, you can find an earlier version of the full text here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.5692

Peer reviewed