X-Ray Wakes in Abell 160

Abstract

`Wakes' of X-ray emission have now been detected trailing behind a few (at least seven) elliptical galaxies in clusters. To quantify how widespread this phenomenon is, and what its nature might be, we have obtained a deep (70 ksec) X-ray image of the poor cluster Abell 160 using the ROSAT HRI. Combining the X-ray data with optical positions of confirmed cluster members, and applying a statistic designed to search for wake-like excesses, we confirm that this phenomenon is observed in galaxies in this cluster. The probability that the detections arise from chance is less than 0.0038. Further, the wakes are not randomly distributed in direction, but are preferentially oriented pointing away from the cluster centre. This arrangement can be explained by a simple model in which wakes arise from the stripping of their host galaxies' interstellar media due to ram pressure against the intracluster medium through which they travel.

7 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (1)

• Galaxies in Clusters: the Observational Characteristics of Bow-Shocks, Wakes and Tails

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• Shapley Optical Survey. I: Luminosity Functions in the Supercluster Environment
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• Structural Evidence for Environment-Driven Transformation of the Blue Galaxies in Local Abell Clusters - A85, A496, and A754
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• Interactions of Radio Galaxies and the Intra-Cluster Medium in Abell 160 and Abell 2462
• The cool wake around 4C 34.16 as seen by XMM-Newton
• Gaseous drag on a gravitational perturber in Modified Newtonian Dynamics and the structure of the wake
• Colour gradients in cluster ellipticals at z~1.4: the hidden content of the galaxy central regions