TY - JOUR
T1 - Intracluster stars and the chemical enrichment of the intracluster medium
AU - Zaritsky, Dennis
AU - Gonzalez, Anthony H.
AU - Zabludoff, Ann I.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Richard Mushotzky for comments on a preliminary draft and Wayne Baumgartner for providing data prior to publication. We also thank Yen-Ting Lin and Joe Mohr for communicating their results prior to publication. D. Z. acknowledges support from a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship and NASA grant NAG5-13583. A. I. Z. is supported by NSF grant AST 02-06083 and NASA LTSA grant NAG5-11108. A. H. G. is supported by an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship under award AST 04-07085.
PY - 2004/10/1
Y1 - 2004/10/1
N2 - We explore the contribution of intracluster stars (ICS) to the chemical enrichment history of the intracluster medium (ICM). In contrast to scenarios in which all the metals originate in cluster galaxies and are then transported into the ICM, ICS enrich the ICM in situ, thereby contributing 100% of their supernovae ejecta directly into the ICM. Modeling the ICS as an ancient single-burst stellar population with a normal initial mass function, we generate ICM iron abundances in the range of the observed values of several tenths solar. Large observational and theoretical uncertainties preclude us from concluding that the ICS are the primary contributor of metals to the ICM in general. However, for the two clusters in our sample and one from the literature, for which all of the required observational constraints exist, we are able to reproduce between half and all of the ICM iron with this simple model. Because of the ubiquity of ICS in clusters and their direct connection with the ICM, we conclude that all models of the chemical enrichment history and energy budget of the ICM should account for the impact of the ICS.
AB - We explore the contribution of intracluster stars (ICS) to the chemical enrichment history of the intracluster medium (ICM). In contrast to scenarios in which all the metals originate in cluster galaxies and are then transported into the ICM, ICS enrich the ICM in situ, thereby contributing 100% of their supernovae ejecta directly into the ICM. Modeling the ICS as an ancient single-burst stellar population with a normal initial mass function, we generate ICM iron abundances in the range of the observed values of several tenths solar. Large observational and theoretical uncertainties preclude us from concluding that the ICS are the primary contributor of metals to the ICM in general. However, for the two clusters in our sample and one from the literature, for which all of the required observational constraints exist, we are able to reproduce between half and all of the ICM iron with this simple model. Because of the ubiquity of ICS in clusters and their direct connection with the ICM, we conclude that all models of the chemical enrichment history and energy budget of the ICM should account for the impact of the ICS.
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U2 - 10.1086/425253
DO - 10.1086/425253
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:7444225710
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 613
SP - L93-L96
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 2 II
ER -