Merger Shocks in Abell 3667 and the Cygnus~A Cluster

TL;DR

This paper reports on X-ray and radio observations of merging galaxy clusters Abell 3667 and Cygnus A, revealing merger shocks, magnetic field estimates, and electron acceleration efficiencies, advancing understanding of cluster merger dynamics.

Contribution

It provides detailed measurements of merger shocks, magnetic fields, and electron acceleration efficiencies in Abell 3667 and Cygnus A, using XMM-Newton and Suzaku data.

Findings

Detected a merger shock with Mach number ~2 in Abell 3667.

Estimated magnetic field strength in the relic >= 3 μG.

Measured radial merger velocity of ~2650 km/s in Cygnus A.

Abstract

We present new XMM-Newton observations of the northwest (NW) radio relic region in the cluster Abell 3667. We detect a jump in the X-ray surface brightness and X-ray temperature at the sharp outer edge of the radio relic which indicate that this is the location of a merger shock with a Mach number of about 2. Comparing the radio emission to the shock properties implies that approximately 0.2% of the dissipated shock kinetic energy goes into accelerating relativistic electrons. This is an order of magnitude smaller than the efficiency of shock acceleration in many Galactic supernova remnants, which may be due to the lower Mach numbers of cluster merger shocks. The X-ray and radio properties indicate that the magnetic field strength in the radio relic is >= 3 muG, which is a very large field at a projected distance of ~2.2 Mpc from the center of a cluster. The radio spectrum is relatively flat at the shock, and steepens dramatically with distance behind the shock. This is consistent with radiative losses by the electrons and the post-shock speed determined from the X-ray properties. The Cygnus A radio source is located in a merging cluster of galaxies. This appears to be an early-stage merger. Our recent Suzaku observation confirm the presence of a hot region between the two subclusters which agrees with the predicted shocked region. The high spectral resolution of the CCDs on Suzaku allowed us to measure the radial component of the merger velocity, Delta v_r \approx 2650 km/s.