Chandra imaging of the X-ray core of Abell 1795

Abstract

We report the discovery of a 40 arcsec long X-ray filament in the core of the cluster of galaxies A1795. The feature coincides with an Halpha+NII filament found by Cowie et al in the early 1980s and resolved into at least 2 U-band filaments by McNamara et al in the mid 1990s. The (emission-weighted) temperature of the X-ray emitting gas along the filament is 2.5-3 keV, as revealed by X-ray colour ratios. The deprojected temperature will be less. A detailed temperature map of the core of the cluster presented. The cD galaxy at the head of the filament is probably moving through or oscillating in the cluster core. The radiative cooling time of the X-ray emitting gas in the filament is about 3x10^8 yr which is similar to the age of the filament obtained from its length and velocity. This suggests that the filament is produced by cooling of the gas from the intracluster medium. The filament, much of which is well separated from the body of the cD galaxy and its radio source, is potentially of great importance in helping to understand the energy and ionization source of the optical nebulosity common in cooling flows.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted by MNRAS, high resolution version available at http://www-xray.ast.cam.ac.uk/papers/a1795_chandra.pd