Exploring Cluster Physics with High-Resolution Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect Images and X-Ray Data: The Case of the Most X-Ray-Luminous Galaxy Cluster RX J1347—1145

Foreseeing the era of high spatial resolution measurements of theSunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE) in clusters of galaxies, we present a prototypeanalysis of this sort combined with Chandra X-ray data. It is appliedspecifically to RX J1347-1145 at z=0.451, the most X-ray-luminous galaxycluster known, for which the highest resolution SZE and X-ray images arecurrently available. We demonstrate that the combined analysis yields a uniqueprobe of complex structures in the intracluster medium, offering determinationsof their temperature, density, and line-of-sight extent. For a subclump in RXJ1347-1145, previously discovered in our SZE map, the temperature inferredafter removing the foreground and background components is well in excess of 20keV, indicating that the cluster has recently undergone a violent merger.Excluding the region around this subclump, the SZE signals in submillimeter tocentimeter bands (350, 150, and 21 GHz) are all consistent with those expectedfrom Chandra X-ray observations. We further present a temperature deprojectiontechnique based on the SZE and X-ray images, without any knowledge of spatiallyresolved X-ray spectroscopy. The methodology presented here will be applicableto a statistical sample of clusters available in the future SZE surveys.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures; minor corrections, final version to appear in PAS