Clusters of galaxies provide a closed box within which one can determine the chemical evolution of the gaseous baryons with cosmic time. We studied this metallicity evolution in the hot X-ray emitting baryons through an analysis of XMM-Newton observations of 29 galaxy clusters in the redshift range 0.3 < z < 1.3. Taken alone, this data set does not show evidence for significant evolution. However, when we also include a comparable sample of 115 clusters observed with Chandra (Maughan et al. 2008) and a lower redshift sample of 70 clusters observed with XMM at z < 0.3 (Snowden et al. 2008), there is definitive evidence for a decrease in the metallicity. This decrease is approximately a factor of two from z = 0 to z \approx 1, over which we find a least-squares best-fit line Z(z) / Z_{\odot} = (0.46 \pm 0.05) - (0.38 \pm 0.03)z. The greatest uncertainty in the evolution comes from poorly constrained metallicities in the highest redshift bin.
The results from Suzaku observations of the central region of the Perseus cluster are presented. Deep exposures with the X-ray Imaging Spectrometer provide high quality X-ray spectra from the intracluster medium. X-ray lines from helium-like Cr and Mn have been detected significantly for the first time in clusters. In addition, elemental abundances of Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca, Fe, and Ni are accurately measured within 10' (or 220 kpc) from the cluster center. The relative abundance ratios are found to be within a range of 0.8-1.5 times the solar value. These abundance ratios are compared with pre…
Aims.The abundances of Fe in the intracluster medium of nearby (z<0.08) clusters were measured up to 0.3$\sim$ 0.5r$_{180}$. Methods.We analyzed 28 clusters of galaxies observed with XMM-Newton. We derived Fe abundances from the flux ratios of Fe lines to the continuum within an energy range of 3.5--6 keV to minimize and evaluate systematic uncertainties. Results.The radial profiles of the Fe abundances of relaxed clusters with a cD galaxy at their X-ray peak have similar slopes. These clusters show similar enhancements in the Fe abundance within 0.1$r_{180}$, and at 0.1--0.3$r_{180}$, they ha…
We use the cosmological semi-analytic model (SAM) for galaxy formation presented in Paper I to study the metallicities and abundance ratios of the intracluster medium (ICM) within the hierarchical structure formation paradigm. By requiring a slightly flat IMF (x=1.15) and a two-population delay-time-distribution (DTD) for SN Ia explosions we found previously that this model is able to reproduce the abundance ratios and supernova rates of early-type galaxies in the local Universe. Predictions for elemental abundances in the ICM pose a further test of the model. We find that with the fiducial mo…
X-ray measurements suggest the abundance of Calcium in the intracluster medium is higher than can be explained using favored models for core-collapse and Type Ia supernovae alone. We investigate whether the Calcium conundrum in the intracluster medium can be alleviated by including a contribution from the recently discovered subclass of supernovae known as Calcium-rich gap transients. Although the Calcium-rich gap transients make up only a small fraction of all supernovae events, we find that their high Calcium yields are sufficient to reproduce the X-ray measurements found for nearby rich clu…
We studied the distributions of metal abundances and metal-mass-to-light ratios in the intracluster medium (ICM) of four galaxy groups, MKW 4, HCG 62, the NGC 1550 group, and the NGC 5044 group, out to 0.5 r180 observed with Suzaku. The Fe abundance decreases with radius, and about 0.2-0.4 solar beyond 0.1 r180. At a given radius in units of r180, the Fe abundance in the ICM of the four galaxy groups were consistent or smaller than those of clusters of galaxies. The Mg/Fe and Si/Fe ratios in the ICM are nearly constant at the solar ratio out to 0.5 r180. We also studied systematic uncertaintie…
Four decades ago, the firm detection of an Fe-K emission feature in the X-ray spectrum of the Perseus cluster revealed the presence of iron in its hot intracluster medium (ICM). With more advanced missions successfully launched over the last 20 years, this discovery has been extended to many other metals and to the hot atmospheres of many other galaxy clusters, groups, and giant elliptical galaxies, as evidence that the elemental bricks of life - synthesized by stars and supernovae - are also found at the largest scales of the Universe. Because the ICM, emitting in X-rays, is in collisional io…
Clusters of galaxies as the largest clearly defined objects in our Universe are ideal laboratories to study the distribution of the most abundant chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and helium and the history of their production. The cluster environment allows us to study the element abundances not only inside the galaxies, but also in the intergalactic space, the intracluster medium. Since the intracluster medium is heated to temperatures of several ten Million degrees, we can study the chemical composition of this medium through X-ray spectroscopy. Up to 13 heavy elements have been detec…
This work measures the evolution of the iron content in galaxy clusters by a rigorous analysis of the data of 130 clusters at 0.1<z<1.3. This task is made difficult by a) the low signal-to-noise ratio of abundance measurements and the upper limits, b) possible selection effects, c) boundaries in the parameter space, d) non-Gaussian errors, e) the intrinsic variety of the objects studied, and f) abundance systematics. We introduce a Bayesian model to address all these issues at the same time, thus allowing cross-talk (covariance). On simulated data, the Bayesian fit recovers the input enrichmen…
We report the first observations of metal distributions in the intracluster medium of the Centaurus cluster up to ~0.17 r_180 with Suzaku. Radial profiles of the O, Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca, and Fe were determined at the outer region of the cluster, and their variations appear to be similar to each other. Within the cool core region (r<0.045 r_ 180), all the metal distributions sharply increased toward the center. In the central region (r<0.015 r_180), the abundances of Si, S, Ar, Ca, and Fe were 1.5--1.8 solar, while those of O and Mg were approximately 1 solar. The derived abundance ratios of O and…
The cluster of galaxies MS 1512.4+3647 (z=0.372) was observed with Suzaku for 270 ks. Besides the Fe abundance, the abundances of Mg, Si, S, and Ni are separately determined for the first time in a medium redshift cluster (z>0.3). The derived abundance pattern of MS 1512.4+3647 is consistent with those of nearby clusters, suggesting that the system has similar contributions from supernovae (SNe) Ia and SNe II to nearby clusters. The number ratio of SNe II to SNe Ia is $\sim3$. The estimated total numbers of both SNe II and SNe Ia against gas mass indicate similar correlation with those for the…
Unveiling the (in)consistencies among the galaxy stellar mass function, star formation histories, satellite abundances and intracluster light from a semi-empirical perspective
Depending on the topology of the magnetic field and characteristics of turbulent motions, diffusion can significantly affect the distribution of elements, in particular helium, in the intracluster medium (ICM). As has been noted previously, an incorrect assumption about the helium abundance will lead to an error in the iron abundance determined from X-ray spectroscopy. The corresponding effect on the temperature measurement is negligibly small. An incorrectly assumed helium abundance will also lead to a systematic error in angular distance measurements based on X-ray and Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ)…
We studied the distributions of Si, Fe, and Ni in the intracluster medium (ICM) of the Coma cluster, one of the largest clusters in the nearby universe, using XMM-Newton data up to 0.5 r180 and Suzaku data of the central region up to 0.16 r180. Using the flux ratios of Ly alpha of H-like Si and 7.8 keV blend to K alpha of He-like Fe, the abundance ratios of Si to Fe and Ni to Fe of the ICM were derived using APEC model v2.0.1. The Si/Fe ratio in the ICM of the Coma cluster shows no radial gradient. The emission weighted averages of the Si/Fe ratio in the ICM within 0.0--0.2 r180, 0.2--0.5 r180…
Fossil groups (FG) of galaxies still present a puzzle to theories of structure formation. Despite the low number of bright galaxies, they have relatively high velocity dispersions and ICM temperatures often corresponding to cluster-like potential wells. Their measured concentrations are typically high, indicating early formation epochs as expected from the originally proposed scenario for their origin as being older undisturbed systems. This is, however, in contradiction with the typical lack of expected well developed cool cores. Here, we apply a cluster dynamical indicator recently discovere…
Using archival Chandra and XMM-Newton data on 35 galaxy clusters, we measured average temperature and metallicity profiles for clusters based separated by temperature, cooling time, and redshift. Our results show no evidence for significant changes in the metallicity or temperature profiles with redshift once these selection effects are taken into account.
Stars formed in galaxy cluster potential wells must be responsible for the high level of enrichment measured in the intracluster medium (ICM); however, there is increasing tension between this truism and the parsimonious assumption that the stars in the generally old population studied optically in cluster galaxies emerged from the same formation sites at the same epochs. We construct a phenomenological cluster enrichment model to demonstrate that ICM elemental abundances are underestimated by a factor >2 for standard assumptions about the stellar population -- a discrepancy we term the "clust…
Detailed non-LTE calculations for red supergiant stars are presented to investigate the influence of NLTE on the formation of atomic iron and titanium lines in the J-band. With their enormous brightness at J-band red supergiant stars are ideal probes of cosmic abundances. Recent LTE studies have found that metallicities accurate to 0.15 dex can be determined from medium resolution spectroscopy of individual red supergiants in galaxies as distant as 10 Mpc. The non-LTE results obtained in this investigation support these findings. Non-LTE abundance corrections for iron are smaller than 0.05 dex…
We have performed accurate iron abundance measurements for 44 red giants (RGs) in the Carina dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxy. We used archival, high-resolution spectra (R~38,000) collected with UVES at ESO/VLT either in slit mode (5) or in fiber mode (39, FLAMES/GIRAFFE-UVES). The sample is more than a factor of four larger than any previous spectroscopic investigation of stars in dSphs based on high-resolution (R>38,000) spectra. We did not impose the ionization equilibrium between neutral and singly-ionized iron lines. The effective temperatures and the surface gravities were estimated by fit…
The abundance and distribution of metals in galaxy clusters contains valuable information about their chemical history and evolution. By looking at how metallicity evolves with redshift, it is possible to constrain the different metal production channels. We use the C-EAGLE clusters, a sample of 30 high resolution ($m_{gas} \simeq 1.8\times 10^{6}$ M$_{\odot}$) cluster zoom simulations, to investigate the redshift evolution of metallicity, with particular focus on the cluster outskirts. The early enrichment model, in which the majority of metals are produced in the core of cluster progenitors …
It has long been suggested that helium nuclei in the intracluster plasma can sediment in the cluster gravitational potential well. Some theoretical estimates for the cores of relaxed clusters predict an excess of helium abundance by up to a factor of a few over its primordial value. The intracluster helium abundance cannot be measured directly. This presents a significant source of uncertainty for cosmological tests based on the X-ray derived cluster quantities, such as the gas mass, total mass, and gas mass fraction, all of which depend on the assumed helium abundance. We point out that clust…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) have Fe II emission from the broad line region (BLR) that differs greatly in strength from object to object. We examine the role of the total and gas-phase iron abundance in determining Fe II strength. Using AGN spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in the redshift range of 0.2 < z < 0.35, we measure the Fe/Ne abundance of the narrow line region (NLR) using the [Fe VII]/[Ne V] line intensity ratio. We find no significant difference in the abundance of Fe relative to Ne in the NLR as a function of Fe II/Hbeta. However, the N II/S II ratio increases a by a…
The pressure profiles of the Intracluster Plasma in galaxy clusters show a wide variance when observed in X rays at low redshifts z<0.2. We find the profiles to follow two main patterns, featuring either a steep or a shallow shape throughout both core and outskirts. We trace these shapes back to a physical dichotomy of clusters into two classes, marked by either low entropy (LE) or high entropy (HE) throughout. From X-ray observations and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich stacked data at higher 0.2<z<0.4, we elicit evidence of an increasing abundance of HEs relative to LEs. We propose this to constitute a sy…
We investigate the spatial distribution of iron in the intra-cluster medium in a selected sample of 41 relaxed clusters in the redshift range $0.05 < z < 1.03$ using {\sl Chandra} archival data. We compute the azimuthally-averaged, deprojected $Z_{\rm Fe}$ profile of each cluster out to $\sim 0.4r_{500}$, and identify a peak in the distribution of iron followed by a flatter distribution at larger radii. Due to the steep gradient both in gas density and abundance, we find that the emission-weighted iron abundance within $0.2r_{500}$, which entirely includes the iron peak in most of the cases, i…
A possibility of generating a population of cosmic-ray particles accelerated in supernovae typeIa (SNIa) remnants in the intracluster medium (ICM) is discussed. The presently constrained host-less SNIa rates in the clusters are found to be sufficient to fill a few hundred kpc region with cosmic-ray electrons within their typical synchrotron life-time of 100 Myr. The SNIa have already been considered potential sources of excess Fe abundance in cool-core clusters, distributed heating and turbulence in ICM. A good fraction of total radio power from mini-halos can be sourced from the SNIa energy d…
The distribution of metals in the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters provides valuable information on their formation and evolution, on the connection with the cosmic star formation and on the effects of different gas processes. By analyzing a sample of simulated galaxy clusters, we study the chemical enrichment of the ICM, its evolution, and its relation with the physical processes included in the simulation and with the thermal properties of the core. These simulations, consisting of re-simulations of 29 Lagrangian regions performed with an upgraded version of the SPH GADGET-3 code…
