How do atomic code uncertainties affect abundance measurements in the intracluster medium?

Mernier, François and Werner, Norbert and Lakhchaura, Kiran and de Plaa, Jelle and Gu, Liyi and Kaastra, Jelle S. and Mao, Junjie and Simionescu, Aurora and Urdampilleta, Igone (2020) How do atomic code uncertainties affect abundance measurements in the intracluster medium? Astronomische Nachrichten, 341 (2). pp. 203-209. ISSN 0004-6337 (https://doi.org/10.1002/asna.202023779)

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Abstract

Accurate chemical abundance measurements of X-ray-emitting atmospheres pervading massive galaxies, galaxy groups, and clusters provide essential information on the star formation and chemical enrichment histories of these large-scale structures. Although the collisionally ionized nature of the intracluster medium (ICM) makes these abundance measurements relatively easy, the underlying spectral models can rely on different atomic codes, which brings additional uncertainties on the inferred abundances. Here we provide a simple, yet comprehensive comparison between the codes SPEXACT v3.0.5 (cie model) and AtomDB v3.0.9 (vapec model) in the case of moderate, charged-coupled device-like resolution spectroscopy. We show that in cool plasmas (kT ≲ 2 keV), systematic differences up to ∼20% for the Fe abundance and ∼45% for the O/Fe, Mg/Fe, Si/Fe, and S/Fe ratios may still occur. Importantly, these discrepancies are also found to be instrument-dependent, at least for the absolute Fe abundance. Future improvements in these two codes will be necessary to better address questions on ICM enrichment.

  • Item type:Article
    ID code:70830
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    29 February 2020
    Published
    31 October 2019
    Accepted
    Subjects:Science > Physics
    Department:Faculty of Science > Physics
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:12 Dec 2019 10:04
    Last modified:09 Apr 2024 01:08
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/70830
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