Temperature and Heavy‐Element Abundance Profiles of Cool Clusters of Galaxies fromASCA

We perform a spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopic study of a set of 18relaxed clusters of galaxies with gas temperatures below 4 keV. Spectralanalysis was done using ASCA/SIS data coupled with the spatial informationcontained in ROSAT/PSPC and Einstein/IPC observations. We derive thetemperature profiles using single-temperature fits and also correct for thepresence of cold gas at the cluster centers. For all of the clusters in thesample, we derive Si and Fe abundance profiles. For a few of the clusters, wealso derive Ne and S abundance profiles. We present a comparison of theelemental abundances derived at similar overdensities as well as elementmass-to-light ratios. We conclude that the preferential accretion of lowentropy, low abundance gas into the potentials of groups and cold clusters canexplain most of the observed trends in metallicity. In addition, we discuss theimportance of energy input from SNe II on cluster scaling relations and on therelation between the observed scatter in the retainment of SN Ia products withdifferences between the epoch of cluster formation.Comment: 14 pages, several changes are introduced, ApJ 2001, v 555 (July 1, in press