SLICE -- Combining Strong Lensing and X-ray in AC 114. Further Insights into the Merger Scenario

TL;DR

This study combines JWST, HST, and X-ray data to model the mass distribution and merger dynamics of galaxy cluster AC 114, revealing a major merger in a late post-collisional phase.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed strong lensing and X-ray combined analysis of AC 114 using new JWST data, identifying a new mass concentration AC114b and refining the cluster's merger scenario.

Findings

The mass model reproduces multiple images with 0.4" RMS accuracy.

The dark matter distribution is unimodal with a large core radius.

Evidence supports a late-stage major merger with hot gas stripped from AC114b.

Abstract

AC114 is a historically significant galaxy cluster, being one of the first strong lensing clusters detected from the ground in the early 1990s, prior to the launch of the HST. Despite this early prominence, no detailed lensing analyses have been carried out for more than fifteen years. We here study this cluster using JWST imaging obtained as part of the SLICE program, complemented by archival HST and X-ray observations. JWST data reveal ten new multiply imaged systems and enable the identification of conjugate substructures in several of the sixteen systems, significantly increasing the number of strong lensing constraints. Using these data, we construct a parametric mass model with Lenstool and extend it by explicitly incorporating the Chandra data in a combined strong lensing+X-ray fit. Our best-fit model reproduces the multiple images with an RMS of 0.4" while simultaneously matching the X-ray data. The dark matter distribution is unimodal and centered on the brightest cluster galaxy, with a large core radius of 83+-5kpc, consistent with values reported in other strong lensing clusters. The strong lensing constraints require the inclusion of an external shear component which position angle points unambiguously towards a nearby (~1Mpc), well defined mass concentration at the same redshift in the North-West, for which we propose the naming AC114b. The spatial coverage of the XMM-Newton data encompasses the whole structure, allowing us to probe the X-ray properties of the companion cluster and the thermodynamics of AC114, providing evidence for a major merger, in line with previous signatures seen in Chandra, radio and optical spectroscopic data. Our results shed new light on the merging scenario, revealing a major merger caught in a late post-collisional phase, where AC114 is the dominant system and Ac114b has likely been stripped of its hot gas.