Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of A2256: cold fronts, merger shocks, and constraint on the IC emission [GA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2005.10838


We present the results of deep Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of a complex merging galaxy cluster Abell 2256 (A2256) that hosts a spectacular radio relic. The temperature and metallicity maps show clear evidence of a merger between the western subcluster and the primary cluster. We detect five X-ray surface brightness edges. Three of them near the cluster center are cold fronts (CFs): CF1 is associated with the infalling subcluster; CF2 is located in the east of the primary cluster and CF3 is to the west of the primary cluster core. The other two edges at cluster outskirts are shock fronts (SFs): SF1 near the radio relic in the NW has Mach numbers derived from the temperature and the density jumps respectively of $M_T=1.62\pm0.12$ and $M_\rho=1.23\pm0.06$; SF2 in the SE has $M_T=1.54\pm0.05$ and $M_\rho=1.16\pm0.13$. In the region of the radio relic there is no evidence for the correlation between X-ray and radio substructures, from which we estimate an upper limit for the inverse Compton emission, and therefore set a lower limit on the magnetic field ($\sim$ 450 kpc from primary cluster center) of $B>1.0\ \mu$G for a single power-law electron spectrum or $B>0.4\ \mu$G for a broken power-law electron spectrum. We propose a merger scenario including a primary cluster, a subcluster, and a group. Our merger scenario accounts for the X-ray edges, diffuse radio features, and galaxy kinematics, as well as projection effects.

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C. Ge, R. Liu, M. Sun, et. al.
Mon, 25 May 20
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Comments: 12 pages, 10 figures, submitted to MNRAS