» XMM observations of metal abundances in galaxy clusters

Presentation duration: 15 minutes

Presenter: Lorenzo Lovisari

Because of their deep gravitational wells, galaxy clusters retain all the metals produced by the stellar populations of the member galaxies. Most of these metals reside in the hot plasma which dominates the baryon content of the clusters. This makes them excellent laboratories for the study of the chemical enrichment history of the universe. The distribution of metals in the ICM gives insight into the evolution process of the cluster galaxies and also of the whole cluster. Simulations have shown that ram-pressure stripping of galaxies and injection from AGNs leave observable traces in the metal distribution. Starbust events result in a high local metallicity, that is moving and mixing along with the ICM. The metal distribution in a cluster shows many stripes and blobs at the positions where the enrichment process has taken place, so the metal maps are the ideal diagnostic tools for galaxy and cluster evolution. We present the first results of our ongoing work, in which we are studying the distribution of metals in a sample of 7 galaxy clusters through the analysis of observed metallicity maps.

Sabine Schindler

Wolfgang Kapferer