1. A WHIM origin for the soft excess emission in the Coma cluster
- Author
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Bonamente, M., Mirakhor, M., Lieu, R., and Walker, S.
- Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics - Abstract
This paper provides a new analysis of ROSAT observations of the Coma cluster, to determine the amount of soft X--ray radiation in excess of the contribution from the hot intra--cluster medium. The re--analysis is made possible by a high--resolution study of the hot intra--cluster medium with the XMM-Newton and Planck telescopes out to the cluster's virial radius. The analysis confirms the original findings of a strong excess of soft X--ray radiation, which is likely to be of thermal origin. We find quantitative agreement between the detected soft excess and the physical characteristics of warm--hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) filaments seen in hydrodynamical simulations. We conclude that the most plausible explanation for the soft excess is the presence of $\sim 10$~Mpc--long filaments at $\log T(K)\simeq 6$, with a baryon overdensity $\sim 300$, converging towards the Coma cluster. This interpretation therefore provides support for the identification of the missing low--redshift baryons with WHIM filaments, as predicted by numerical simulations., Comment: MNRAS accepted
- Published
- 2022
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