Profiles of clusters of galaxies from Chandra

The entropy profiles are computed to larger radii than in previous Chandra cluster sample analyses. We find that the iron mass fraction measured in the inner 0.15R_500_ shows a larger dispersion across the sample of low-mass clusters than it does for the sample of high-mass clusters.

We interpret this finding as the result of the mixing of more halos in large clusters than in small clusters, leading to an averaging of the metallicity in the large clusters, and thus less dispersion of metallicity. This interpretation lends support to the idea that the low-entropy, metal-rich gas of merging halos reaches the clusters' centers, which explains observations of core-collapse supernova product metallicity peaks, and which is seen in hydrodynamical simulations.