We use Chandra data to map the gas temperature in the central region of the
merging cluster A2142. The cluster is markedly nonisothermal; it appears that
the central cooling flow has been disturbed but not destroyed by a merger. The
X-ray image exhibits two sharp, bow-shaped, shock-like surface brightness edges
or gas density discontinuities. However, temperature and pressure profiles
across these edges indicate that these are not shock fronts. The pressure is
reasonably continuous across these edges, while the entropy jumps in the
opposite sense to that in a shock (i.e. the denser side of the edge has lower
temperature, and hence lower entropy). Most plausibly, these edges delineate
the dense subcluster cores that have survived a merger and ram pressure
stripping by the surrounding shock-heated gas.Comment: Latex, 9 pages, 5 figures (including color), uses emulateapj.sty.
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