ChandraReveals Galaxy Cluster with the Most Massive Nearby Cooling Core: RXC J1504.1−0248

A CHANDRA follow-up observation of an X-ray luminous galaxy cluster with acompact appearance, RXCJ1504.1-0248 discovered in our REFLEX Cluster Survey,reveals an object with one of the most prominent cluster cooling cores. With acore radius of ~30 kpc smaller than the cooling radius with ~140 kpc more than70% of the high X-ray luminosity of Lbol = 4.3 10e45 erg s-1 of this cluster isradiated inside the cooling radius. A simple modeling of the X-ray morphologyof the cluster leads to a formal mass deposition rate within the classicalcooling flow model of 1500 - 1900 Msun yr-1 (for h=0.7), and 2300 - 3000 Msunyr-1 (for h=0.5). The center of the cluster is marked by a giant ellipticalgalaxy which is also a known radio source. Thus it is very likely that weobserve one of the interaction systems where the central cluster AGN is heatingthe cooling core region in a self-regulated way to prevent a massive cooling ofthe gas, similar to several such cases studied in detail in more nearbyclusters. The interest raised by this system is then due to the high powerrecycled in RXCJ1504-0248 over cooling time scales which is about one order ofmagnitude higher than what occurs in the studied, nearby cooling core clusters.The cluster is also found to be very massive, with a global X-ray temperatureof about 10.5 keV and a total mass of about 1.7 10e15 Msun inside 3 Mpc.Comment: accepted for publication in Astrophys. Journal, 10 figure