The X-ray Evolution of Merging Galaxies

We present here the first study of the X-ray properties of an evolutionary sample of merging galaxies. Both ROSAT PSPC and HRI data are presented for a sample of eight interacting galaxy systems, each believed to involve a similar encounter between two spiral discs of approximately equal size. The mergers span a large range in age, from completely detached to fully merged systems. A great deal of interesting X-ray structure is seen, and the X-ray properties of each individual system are discussed in detail. Along the merging sequence, several trends are evident: in the case of several of the infrared bright systems, the diffuse emission is very extended, and appears to arise from material ejected from the galaxies. The onset of this process seems to occur very soon after the galaxies first encounter one another, and these ejections soon evolve into distorted flows. More massive extensions (perhaps involving up to 1e10 solar masses of hot gas) are seen at the `ultraluminous' peak of the interaction, as the galactic nuclei coalesce. The amplitude of the evolution of the X-ray emission through a merger is markedly different from that of the infrared and radio emission however, and this, we believe, may well be linked with the large extensions of hot gas observed. The late, relaxed remnants, appear relatively devoid of gas, and possess an X-ray halo very different from that of typical ellipticals, a problem for the `merger hypothesis', whereby the merger of two disc galaxies results in an elliptical galaxy. However, these systems are still relatively young in terms of total merger lifetime, and they may still have a few Gyr of evolution to go through, before they resemble typical elliptical galaxies.Comment: 30 pages, 15 figures, accepted by MNRA

The intragroup medium in loose groups of galaxies

We have used the ROSAT PSPC to study the properties of a sample of 24 X-ray bright galaxy groups, representing the largest sample examined in detail to date. Hot plasma models are fitted to the spectral data to derive temperatures, and modified King models are used to characterise the surface brightness profiles. In agreement with previous work, we find evidence for the presence of two components in the surface brightness profiles. The extended component is generally found to be much flatter than that observed in galaxy clusters, and there is evidence that the profiles follow a trend with system mass. We derive relationships between X-ray luminosity, temperature and optical velocity dispersion. The relation between X-ray luminosity and temperature is found to be L_X \propto T^{4.9}, which is significantly steeper than the same relation in galaxy clusters. These results are in good agreement with preheating models, in which galaxy winds raise the internal energy of the gas, inhibiting its collapse into the shallow potential wells of poor systems.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

The Properties of the Hot Gas in Galaxy Groups and Clusters from 1-D Hydrodynamical Simulations -- I. Cosmological Infall Models

We report the results of 1-D hydrodynamical modelling of the evolution of gas in galaxy clusters. We have incorporated many of the effects missing from earlier 1-D treatments: improved modelling of the dark matter and galaxy distributions, cosmologically realistic evolution of the cluster potential, and the effects of a multiphase cooling flow. The model utilises a fairly standard 1-D Lagrangian hydrodynamical code to calculate the evolution of the intracluster gas. This is coupled to a theoretical model for the growth of dark matter density perturbations. The main advantages of this treatment over 3-D codes are (1) improved spatial resolution within the cooling flow region, (2) much faster execution time, allowing a fuller exploration of parameter space, and (3) the inclusion of additional physics. In the present paper, we explore the development of infall models -- in which gas relaxes into a deepening potential well -- covering a wide range of cluster mass scales. We find that such simple models reproduce many of the global properties of observed clusters. Very strong cooling flows develop in these 1-D cluster models. In practice, disruption by major mergers probably reduces the cooling rate in most clusters. The models overpredict the gas fraction in low mass systems, indicating the need for additional physical processes, such as preheating or galaxy winds, which become important on small mass scales.Comment: 38 pages, 21 encapsulated postscript figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

The Birmingham-CfA cluster scaling project - II. Mass composition and distribution

We investigate the spatial distribution of the baryonic and non-baryonic mass components in a sample of 66 virialized systems. We have used X-ray measurements to determine the deprojected temperature and density structure of the intergalactic medium and have employed these to map the underlying gravitational potential. In addition, we have measured the deprojected spatial distribution of galaxy luminosity for a subset of this sample, spanning over 2 decades in mass. With this combined X-ray/optical study we examine the scaling properties of the baryons and address the issue of mass-to-light (M/L) ratio in groups and clusters of galaxies. We measure a median mass-to-light ratio of 224 h70 M/L (solar) in the rest frame B_j band, in good agreement with other measurements based on X-ray determined masses. There is no trend in M/L with X-ray temperature and no significant trend for mass to increase faster than luminosity: M \propto \L_{B,j}^{1.08 +/- 0.12}. This implied lack of significant variation in star formation efficiency suggests that gas cooling cannot be greatly enhanced in groups, unless it drops out to form baryonic dark matter. Correspondingly, our results indicate that non-gravitational heating must have played a significant role in establishing the observed departure from self-similarity in low mass systems. The median baryon fraction for our sample is 0.162 h70^{-3/2}, which allows us to place an upper limit on the cosmological matter density, Omega_m <= 0.27 h70^{-1}, in good agreement with the latest results from WMAP. We find evidence of a systematic trend towards higher central density concentration in the coolest haloes, indicative of an early formation epoch and consistent with hierarchical formation models.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures; published in MNRAS. Corrected mistake in photometric conversion (equation 2): Bj luminosities increased for A2218, N2563 & N5846. Conclusions unchange

The X-ray Evolution of Merging Galaxies

From a Chandra survey of nine interacting galaxy systems the evolution of X-ray emission during the merger process has been investigated. From comparing Lx/Lk and Lfir/Lb it is found that the X-ray luminosity peaks around 300 Myr before nuclear coalescence, even though we know that rapid and increasing star formation is still taking place at this time. It is likely that this drop in X-ray luminosity is a consequence of outflows breaking out of the galactic discs of these systems. At a time around 1 Gyr after coalescence, the merger-remnants in our sample are X-ray dim when compared to typical X-ray luminosities of mature elliptical galaxies. However, we do see evidence that these systems will start to resemble typical elliptical galaxies at a greater dynamical age, given the properties of the 3 Gyr system within our sample, indicating that halo regeneration will take place within low Lx merger-remnants.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Proceedings of the IAU Symposium No. 23

The Birmingham-CfA cluster scaling project - III: entropy and similarity in galaxy systems

We examine profiles and scaling properties of the entropy of the intergalactic gas in a sample of 66 virialized systems, ranging in mass from single elliptical galaxies to rich clusters, for which we have resolved X-ray temperature profiles. Some of the properties we derive appear to be inconsistent with any of the models put forward to explain the breaking of self-similarity in the baryon content of clusters. In particular, the entropy profiles, scaled to the virial radius, are broadly similar in form across the sample, apart from a normalization factor which differs from the simple self-similar scaling with temperature. Low mass systems do not show the large isentropic cores predicted by preheating models, and the high entropy excesses reported at large radii in groups by Finoguenov et al (2002) are confirmed, and found to extend even to moderately rich clusters. We discuss the implications of these results for the evolutionary history of the hot gas in clusters, and suggest that preheating may affect the entropy of intracluster gas primarily by reducing the density of material accreting into groups and clusters along cosmic filaments.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures - accepted for publication in MNRA

Gas stripping in galaxy groups - the case of the starburst spiral NGC 2276

Ram pressure stripping of galactic gas is generally assumed to be inefficient in galaxy groups due to the relatively low density of the intragroup medium and the small velocity dispersions of groups. To test this assumption, we obtained Chandra X-ray data of the starbursting spiral NGC 2276 in the NGC 2300 group of galaxies, a candidate for a strong galaxy interaction with hot intragroup gas. The data reveal a shock-like feature along the western edge of the galaxy and a low-surface-brightness tail extending to the east, similar to the morphology seen in other wavebands. Spatially resolved spectroscopy shows that the data are consistent with intragroup gas being pressurized at the leading western edge of NGC 2276 due to the galaxy moving supersonically through the intragroup medium at a velocity ~850 km/s. Detailed modelling of the gravitational potential of NGC 2276 shows that the resulting ram-pressure could significantly affect the morphology of the outer gas disc but is probably insufficient to strip large amounts of cold gas from the disc. We estimate the mass loss rates due to turbulent viscous stripping and starburst outflows being swept back by ram pressure, showing that both mechanisms could plausibly explain the presence of the X-ray tail. Comparison to existing HI measurements shows that most of the gas escaping the galaxy is in a hot phase. With a total mass loss rate of roughly 5 M_Sun/yr, the galaxy could be losing its entire present HI supply within a Gyr. This demonstrates that the removal of galactic gas through interactions with a hot intragroup medium can occur rapidly enough to transform the morphology of galaxies in groups. Implications of this for galaxy evolution in groups and clusters are briefly discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Chandra Observations of low velocity dispersion groups

Deviations of galaxy groups from cluster scaling relations can be understood in terms of an excess of entropy in groups. The main effect of this excess is to reduce the density and thus luminosity of the intragroup gas. Given this, groups should also should show a steep relationship between X-ray luminosity and velocity dispersion. However, previous work suggests that this is not the case with many measuring slopes flatter than the cluster relation. Examining the group L_X:\sigma relation shows that much of the flattening is caused by a small subset of groups which show very high X-ray luminosities for their velocity dispersions (or vice versa). Detailed Chandra study of two such groups shows that earlier ROSAT results were subject to significant (~30-40%) point source contamination, but confirm that a significant hot IGM is present in these groups, although these are two of the coolest systems in which intergalactic X-ray emission has been detected. Their X-ray properties are shown to be broadly consistent with those of other galaxy groups, although the gas entropy in NGC 1587 is unusually low, and its X-ray luminosity correspondingly high for its temperature, compared to most groups. This leads us to suggest that the velocity dispersion in these systems has been reduced in some way, and we consider how this might have come about.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

The mass and dynamical state of Abell 2218

Abell 2218 is one of a handful of clusters in which X-ray and lensing analyses of the cluster mass are in strong disagreement. It is also a system for which X-ray data and radio measurements of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich decrement have been combined in an attempt to constrain the Hubble constant. However, in the absence of reliable information on the temperature structure of the intracluster gas, most analyses have been carried out under the assumption of isothermality. We combine X-ray data from the ROSAT PSPC and the ASCA GIS instruments, enabling us to fit non-isothermal models, and investigate the impact that this has on the X-ray derived mass and the predicted Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. We find that a strongly non-isothermal model for the intracluster gas, which implies a central cusp in the cluster mass distribution, is consistent with the available X-ray data and compatible with the lensing results. At r<1 arcmin, there is strong evidence to suggest that the cluster departs from a simple relaxed model. We analyse the dynamics of the galaxies and find that the central galaxy velocity dispersion is too high to allow a physical solution for the galaxy orbits. The quality of the radio and X-ray data do not at present allow very restrictive constraints to be placed on H_0. It is apparent that earlier analyses have under-estimated the uncertainties involved. However, values greater than 50 km/s/Mpc are preferred when lensing constraints are taken into account.Comment: 16 pages, 9 postscript figures, accepted for publication in MNRA