Line-of-sight Elongation and Hydrostatic Mass Bias of the Frontier Fields Galaxy Cluster Abell 370

TL;DR

This study combines weak-lensing and X-ray data to analyze the mass distribution and geometry of galaxy cluster Abell 370, revealing a prolate shape and significant hydrostatic mass bias due to its disturbed state.

Contribution

It introduces a free-form lensing mass reconstruction and a triaxial modeling approach with line-of-sight priors to constrain the cluster's 3D structure and hydrostatic bias.

Findings

Mass estimate: $M_{200}=(1.54 imes 10^{15})h^{-1}M_\odot$

Hydrostatic bias ratio: $1-b \\approx 0.5$

Cluster is highly elongated and dynamically disturbed.

Abstract

We present a detailed weak-lensing and X-ray study of the Frontier Fields galaxy cluster Abell 370, one of the most massive known lenses on the sky, using wide-field BRz Subaru/Sprime-Cam and Chandra X-ray observations. By combining two-dimensional (2D) shear and azimuthally averaged magnification constraints derived from Subaru data, we perform a lensing mass reconstruction in a free-form manner, which allows us to determine both radial structure and 2D morphology of the cluster mass distribution. In a triaxial framework assuming a Navarro-Frenk-White density profile, we constrain the intrinsic structure and geometry of the cluster halo by forward modeling the reconstructed mass map. We obtain a halo mass $M_{200}=(1.54 \pm 0.29)\times 10^{15}h^{-1}M_\odot$, a halo concentration $c_{200}=5.27 \pm 1.28$, and a minor-major axis ratio $q_a=0.62 \pm 0.23$ with uninformative priors. Using a prior on the line-of-sight alignment of the halo major axis derived from binary merger simulations constrained by multi-probe observations, we find that the data favor a more prolate geometry with lower mass and lower concentration. From triaxial lens modeling with the line-of-sight prior, we find a spherically enclosed gas mass fraction of $f_\mathrm{gas}=(8.4 \pm 1.0)\%$ at $0.7h^{-1}$ Mpc $\sim 0.7r_{500}$. When compared to the hydrostatic mass estimate from Chandra observations, our triaxial weak-lensing analysis yields spherically enclosed mass ratios of $1-b \equiv M_\mathrm{HE}/M_\mathrm{WL} = 0.56 \pm 0.09$ and $0.51 \pm 0.09$ at $0.7h^{-1}$ Mpc with and without using the line-of-sight prior, respectively. Since the cluster is in a highly disturbed dynamical state, this represents the likely maximum level of hydrostatic bias in galaxy clusters.