# EUV images of the Clusters of Galaxies A2199 and A1795: clear evidence for a separate and luminous emission component

## Abstract

Since all of the five clusters of galaxies observed by the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) deep survey telescope are found to possess a diffuse EUV emitting component which is unrelated to the hot intracluster medium (ICM) at X-ray temperatures, the question concerning the nature of this new component has been a subject of controversy. Here we present results of an EUV and soft X-ray spatial analysis of the rich clusters Abell 2199 and 1795. The EUV emission does not resemble the X-ray morphology of clusters: at the cluster core the EUV contours are organized; at larger radii they are anisotropic, and are therefore unrelated to the hot ICM. The ratio of EUV to soft X-ray intensity rises with respect to cluster radius, to reach values $``$ 10 times higher than that expected from the hot ICM. The strong EUV excess which exists in the absence of soft X-ray excess poses formidable problems to the non-thermal (inverse-Compton) scenario, but may readily be explained as due to emission lines present only in the EUV range. In particular, warm gas produced by shock heating could account for such lines without proliferation of bolometric luminosities and mass budgets.

The ‘cluster soft excess’ (CSE) phenomenon, which originated from EUVE, was confirmed by the ROSAT and BeppoSAX (Lieu et al 1996a,b; Bowyer, Lampton and Lieu 1996; Fabian 1996; Mittaz, Lieu and Lockman 1998; Bowyer, Lieu and Mittaz 1998; Kaastra 1998). The non-thermal interpretation of this phenomenon (Ensslin and Biermann 1998; Hwang 1997; Sarazin and Lieu 1998), favored on plausibility grounds over the original thermal (warm gas) scenario, is recently supported by the BeppoSAX and RXTE discoveries of hard X-ray tails in the spectra of several clusters (Kaastra 1998; Fusco-Femiano et al 1998; Rephaeli et al 1999), some of which exhibit similar radial trends as the CSE. In this Letter we report first results on a spatial analysis of the EUV which reveals clear and essential differences in spatial morphology between the EUV and soft X-rays. Our results concern the rich clusters Abell 2199 and 1795; although a similar conclusion exists also in the case of Virgo, A4038, and Coma, the analyses of these will be presented in a subsequent and more detailed paper.

Abell 2199 was observed by the EUVE deep survey (DS) Lex/B (69 - 190 eV) filter for $``$ 50, 000 sec. Figure 1(a) is a radial profile of the cluster surface brightness after removal of point source contributions and subtraction of a background taken from the $`>`$ 15 arcmin region where there is no further evidence of cluster emission. Standard correction procedures were applied<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1See ‘Deep Survey Dead Spot Correction Algorithm’, internal memo MMS/EUVE/0084/94, Center for EUV Astrophysics, Berkeley to recover the signals lost within a small region near boresight of $``$ 1 arcmin radius and $``$ 3 arcmin away from the cluster center - a region known as the deadspot, which was caused by the February 1993 observation of the intense EUV source HZ 43. This procedure ensures full integrity in the data reduction procedure; its actual effect is minor, resulting only in a slight, statistically insignificant enhancement of the brightness in the central portion of the profile.

To compare with the X-ray behavior, data from a ROSAT Position Sensitive Proportional Counter pointing which took place in July 1990 were extracted from the archive<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2HEASARC, available at http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/rosat/archive.html, and maintained by the ROSAT/ASCA Guest Observer Facility.. Again point sources were removed, and a background as determined from the outermost annulus was subtracted after vignetting corrections. A radial profile of the EUV to soft X-ray ratio is shown in Figure 1(b). To perform a quantitative assessment of the trend, we also show in Figure 1(b) the expected value of the ratio if the emission originated from the virial gas alone. This expected value is obtained by modeling the PSPC 0.2 - 2.0 keV (PH channels 18 - 200) data of concentric annuli with a single temperature MEKAL thin plasma code (Mewe, Gronenschild & van den Oord 1985; Mewe, Lemen & van den Oord 1986; Kaastra 1992), using an abundance of 0.5 solar (David et al 1993) and line-of-sight column density as measured by a dedicated observation at Green Bank (for further details see Lieu et al 1996a,b), which reported $`N_H=`$ 8.3 $`\times `$ 10<sup>19</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup> with a nominal error of $`<`$ 10<sup>19</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>. No CSE was evident in the PSPC data: specifically the model satisfactorily accounts for all the data of the employed PH channels.

However, the Lex/B data indicate substantial CSE, as it can be seen from Figure 1b that the relative strength of the Lex/B CSE rises with radius, analogous to Abell 1795 (Mittaz, Lieu & Lockman 1998). This is borne-out even more by the 2-D images below. We emphasize that the effect of concern is only slightly modified if more accurate abundances (Mushotzky et al 1996) were used to compute the expected softness ratio - the basic notion of a rising trend in this ratio does not appear to be an abundance issue. Given that most of the extragalactic EUV radiation is absorbed, and that the DS data are background limited, the radially rising softness ratio suggests a possible spatial extent of the EUV emission far larger than our current measurements.

To investigate the spatial distribution of the EUV, we adaptively smoothed the DS event image with a gaussian filter which encloses a S/N (signal-to-noise ratio<sup>3</sup><sup>3</sup>3Since EUVE data are background limited, this S/N is calculated as the ratio $`(SB)/\sqrt{S}`$, where $`S`$ is the number of counts enclosed by the filter and $`B`$ is the detector background estimated from regions free of cluster emission.) of $``$ 5 $`\sigma `$. In the central region of the cluster where the signals are strong, a minimum filter size equal to that of the DS point spread function (PSF, Sirk et al 1997) was enforced. Contours of the smoothed and background subtracted surface brightness are shown in Figure 2(a). The lowest contour level plotted is $``$ 7.5 % above background; since no part of the entire 2<sup>o</sup> $`\times `$ 0.5<sup>o</sup> area of the Lex/B filter has such a high brightness, other than the cluster region as shown, the detected emission is not an apparent effect caused by random background variations.

To further establish the reality of the extended component we produced similarly smoothed images of (a) two blank field pointings; and (b) an observation of the globular cluster X-ray source M15 (for 1 – 6.5 keV detection see Callanan et al 1987), which showed that the source was visible in the EUV. The uniformity of the background in (a), especially the absence of any enhancements over a large area centered at boresight - an area where the observed cluster targets normally occupy, excludes the possibility that diffuse cluster EUV is a systematic detector spatial effect. In (b), the lack of any extended halo around M15, despite the source having a peak surface brightness comparable to that of the two clusters, also rules out leakage of central source radiation in the EUV or X-rays as origin of the cluster syndrome - a conclusion fully consistent with our understanding of the DS PSF. All the image data referred to in this Letter are available as FITS files<sup>4</sup><sup>4</sup>4These can be downloaded via anonymous ftp from the address cspar.uah.edu/input/max/..

For comparison with spatial behavior in the X-rays, we show in Figure 2(b) a background subtracted and exposure corrected soft X-ray contour map of A2199, using the R2 band data of a ROSAT PSPC observation (R2 refers to PH channel 18-41, or $``$ 0.2 – 0.3 keV by channel boundaries) and a gaussian smoothing filter commensurate in size with the PSPC PSF in this passband (note that S/N is not a problem for the PSPC data). Despite the proximity of the R2 and Lex/B passbands, resemblance between Figures 2(a) and 2(b) is only restricted to the cluster core, where both images show a correlating set of organized contours. At larger radii the R2 contours remain regular and symmetrical, reminiscent of emission from a hydrostatic gas, but the Lex/B contours do not share this property.

To assess the statistical significance of the Lex/B anisotropies, we divided the image into concentric annuli moving outwards from the cluster emission centroid. The surface brightness of each annulus is computed over octants, and a $`\chi ^2`$ test is applied to the hypothesis that the octant counts are all consistent with their azimuthally averaged value. In Table 1 we show $`\chi _{red}^2`$ for four equally spaced annuli between 0 and 12 arcmin radius. It can be seen that for regions outside 6 arcmin radius emission anisotropy is asserted with a confidence level of $`>`$ 98.5 % (corresponding to $`\chi _{red}^2`$ 2.4 for 8 degrees of freedom). We repeated this test on blank field data of comparable exposure, using the same near-boresight area of the DS detector where cluster observations were made. Results, also shown in Table 1, indicate that the detector background distribution does not have similar anomalies. Furthermore, detailed plots (not shown) reveal that the A2199 anisotropy is due to deviations of the data from the average value in directions where spatially asymmetric features are apparent in Figure 2(a). Visual comparison with the optical map of the Digital Sky Survey revealed no obvious anisotropy in the density and brightness distribution of member galaxies within the relevant region.

From the radial trend of the Lex/B : R2 ratio (Figure 1b) it was evident that the relationship between the EUV and the hot ICM decrease with radius. This is borne-out more strongly in 2-D by Figure 2(c), which indicates an even sharper radial increase of the ratio in directions normal to the Lex/B brightness contours. The lack of any resemblance between Figures 2(a) and 2(b) at the outer regions of the cluster provides crucial further confirmation that the EUV emitting phase leads an existence entirely separate from the hot ICM. In particular the possibility of interpreting the CSE as due to our overestimate of the line-of-sight Galactic absorption of the hot ICM radiation (e.g. Arabadjis & Bregman 1998) is completely excluded by these latest data.

Apart from A2199, in this Letter we also report results of a similar study of the rich cluster Abell 1795. An earlier paper (Mittaz, Lieu & Lockman 1998) showed radial profiles of both the EUV surface brightness and the emission softness ratio for this cluster, it also showed a feeble CSE in the PSPC data - such information will not be repeated. Here we focus on a 2-D image analysis, where all the foregoing discussions regarding adopted techniques apply. As before, we now show in Figure 3 contours of the DS Lex/B and PSPC R2-band surface brightness, and of the Lex/B : R2 ratio. The maps lead us to draw conclusions about A1795 similar to those of A2199, viz. that the Lex/B contours are organized (but differently shaped from the R2 ones) at the core, are anisotropic at larger radii (see also Table 1) with no similar effects in the optical, and that the rising radial trend of softness ratio is in agreement with that reported in our earlier paper.

Several interesting physical deductions can be made from a spatial comparison between the EUV and X-rays. The anisotropic EUV emission could, within the context of the inverse-Compton scenario, reflect the distribution of the intracluster magnetic field strength (Ensslin, Lieu & Biermann 1999) in that electrons in regions with $`>`$ a few $`\mu `$G fields would have been removed by synchrotron losses as diffusive replenishment is always negligibly slow (Völk, Aharonian & Breitschwerdt 1996). On the other hand, if the emission is thermal, as originally advocated, this would imply the existence of warm gas which, by virtue of its lack of hydrostatic equilibrium at these lower temperatures, could have an anisotropic (and possibly clumped) distribution as well.

Why do the Lex/B and R2 maps appear so different, given that their energy passbands have substantial overlap ? Our simulations of the instrumental performances indicate that this could happen only if the EUV component has a spectrum which does not exceed $``$ 0.2 keV. For a non-thermal origin the behavior implies that the bulk of the relativistic electrons have energies below 200 MeV, a cut-off effect which is most obviously understood as due to aging. However, a major difficulty concerns the strong Lex/B excess accompanied by little or no R2 excess, as this requires an age of $``$ 3 Gyr and hence a very significant spectral evolution (i.e. losses). By the time the spectrum at the present epoch explains the observations, at injection the electron pressure alone would have far exceeded that of the hot ICM gas, leading to an unreasonably short lifetime estimate for the gas.

It is more natural to interpret the marked contrast in the behavior of the Lex/B and R2 bands as signatures of bright emission lines which are present only in the EUV range. Although exotic line species arising from an interaction process which may involve dark matter cannot totally be excluded, a specific scenario of this kind is not available. However, lines could simply be a direct witness to the presence of thermal gas. For example, warm under-ionized gas shocked in mixing layers around cool clouds (Fabian 1997) can produce a blend of intense lines exclusively within the Lex/B energy range, thereby limiting the bolometric luminosity and (hence) the gas mass budget and mass cooling rate to more reasonable values. The rise in relative EUV excess with radius may then be a density scaling effect - at larger radii the rarer gas stays longer in this out of equilibrium phase. Detailed hydrodynamic simulation of the thermal model, with associated mass implications, is work in progress.

We thank an anonymous referee for helpful comments.

Figure Captions

Figure 1a. Radial profile of the EUV surface brightness of A2199. A background as determined from the data taken beyond the radius of 15 arcmin was subtracted.   

Figure 1b. Radial profile of the DS Lex/B to PSPC R2 band ratio. The dotted line represents the expected band ratio of $``$ 0.03 from a single temperature fit to the DS and PSPC data, using the MEKAL code. The model for line-of-sight Galactic absorption is Balucinska-Church & McCammon (1992); if the Morrison & McCammon (1983) model was used instead, the predicted ratio would become 0.037. The EUV depletion within 2 arcmin radius can be explained by the addition of an intrinsic absorbing column of $``$ 3.5 $`\times `$ 10<sup>19</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>. Elsewhere the rise of the ratio (and hence the degree of soft excess) with radius is evident.   

Figure 2a. DS Lex/B contours of the surface brightness of Abell 2199 (for details see text). The peak emission is $`1.98\times 10^3ph/arcmin^2/s`$, and contours are labeled as percent of this peak value, with the lowest contour at $`8.4\times 10^5ph/arcmin^2/s`$.   

Figure 2b. PSPC R2 band contours of the surface brightness of Abell 2199 (for details see text). The peak emission is $`8.3\times 10^2ph/arcmin^2/s`$. Next contours are $`1.66\times 10^3,2.8\times 10^3,4.2\times 10^3,7.2\times 10^3,1.4\times 10^2,2.9\times 10^2`$, and $`7.4\times 10^2ph/arcmin^2/s`$.   

Figure 2c. Contours of DS Lex/B to PSPC R2 band ratio of Abell 2199. The dotted lines mark regions where the DS brightness is 6 % above the background, and the contours are labeled in units of 1 %. The expected value of this ratio was given earlier (see caption of Figure 1b).   

Figure 3a. DS Lex/B contours of the surface brightness of Abell 1795 (for details see text). The peak emission is $`3\times 10^3ph/arcmin^2/s`$, and contours are labeled as percent of this peak value, with the lowest contour at $`1.6\times 10^4ph/arcmin^2/s`$ (5 % above background).   

Figure 3b. PSPC R2 band contours of the surface brightness of Abell 1795 (for details see text). The peak emission is $`9.5\times 10^2ph/arcmin^2/s`$. Next contours are $`8.6\times 10^4,1.3\times 10^3,2.1\times 10^3,3.6\times 10^3,6.7\times 10^3,9.8\times 10^3,1.4\times 10^2,3\times 10^2`$ and $`4.5\times 10^2ph/arcmin^2/s`$.   

Figure 3c. Contours of DS Lex/B to PSPC R2 band ratio of Abell 1795. The dotted lines mark regions where the DS brightness is 25 % above the background, and the contours are labeled in units of 1 %. The expected value of this ratio, based on a single temperature ICM, is 1.8 % (Mittaz, Lieu, & Lockman 1998).   

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