Observational Tests of the Mass-Temperature Relation for Galaxy Clusters

(Abridged) This is the second in a series of papers in which we derive simultaneous constraints on cosmology and X-ray scaling relations using observations of massive, X-ray flux-selected galaxy clusters. The data set consists of 238 clusters drawn from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey with 0.1-2.4 keV luminosities >2.5e44 erg/second, and incorporates extensive follow-up observations using the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Our analysis accounts self-consistently for all selection effect...

We used archival ROSAT observations to investigate the X-ray surface brightness profiles of a sample of 26 clusters in the redshift range (0.04-0.06). For 15 of these clusters accurate temperature (kT>3.5 keV) were available from the literature. The scaled emission measure profiles look remarkably similar above ~0.2 times the virial radius r_V. On the other hand a large scatter is observed in the cluster core properties. We fitted a \betamodel (with and without excising the c...

We present a spatially-resolved analysis of the temperature and gas density profiles of galaxy clusters at z=0.4-0.7 observed with XMM-Newton. These data are used to derive the total cluster mass within the radius r_500 without assuming isothermality, and also to measure the average temperature and total X-ray luminosity excluding the cooling cores. We derive the high-redshift M-T and L-T relations and compare them with the local measurements. The high-redshift L-T relation h...

We present the MAssive ClusterS and Intercluster Structures (MACSIS) project, a suite of 390 clusters simulated with baryonic physics that yields realistic massive galaxy clusters capable of matching a wide range of observed properties. MACSIS extends the recent BAHAMAS simulation to higher masses, enabling robust predictions for the redshift evolution of cluster properties and an assessment of the effect of selecting only the hottest systems. We study the observable-mass sca...

The halo mass-temperature relation for a sample of 216 galaxy clusters, groups, and individual galaxies observed by $Chandra$ X-ray Observatory is presented. Using accurate spectral measurements of their hot atmospheres, we derive the $M-T$ relation for systems with temperatures ranging between 0.4-15.0 keV. We measure the total mass of clusters, groups, and galaxies at radius $R_{2500}$, finding that the $M_{2500} \propto T^{\alpha}$ relation follows a power-law with $\alpha...

In the self-similar scenario for galaxy cluster formation and evolution, the thermodynamic properties of the X-ray emitting plasma can be predicted in their dependencies on the halo mass and redshift only. However, several departures from this simple self-similar scenario have been observed. We show how our semi-analytic model $i(cm)z$, which modifies the self-similar predictions through two temperature-dependent quantities, the gas mass fraction $f_g=f_0 T^{f_1} E_z^{f_z}$ a...

A precise understanding of the relations between observable X-ray properties of galaxy clusters and cluster mass is a vital part of the application of X-ray galaxy cluster surveys to test cosmological models. An understanding of how these relations evolve with redshift is just emerging from a number of observational data sets. The current literature provides a diverse and inhomogeneous picture of scaling relation evolution. We attempt to transform these results and the data...

Recent X-ray observations have been used to demonstrate that the cluster gas mass-temperature relation is steeper than theoretical self-similar predictions drawn from numerical simulations that consider the evolution of the cluster gas through the effects of gravity and shock heating alone. One possible explanation for this is that the gas mass fraction is not constant across clusters of different temperature, as is usually assumed. Observationally, however, there is no compe...

(Abridged) We present in this paper a sample of 14 nearby clusters of galaxies observed with the ROSAT/PSPC. We only select clusters with low galactic nH in order to trace the X-ray emitting intra-cluster medium (ICM) out to large radii. We convert the X-ray surface brightness profiles of the clusters into emission measure profiles scaled to the classical scaling relations based on the spherical collapse model. We sort the clusters into different temperature bins and stack th...

We examine the systematics affecting the X-ray mass estimators applied to a set of five simulated galaxy clusters. They have been processed through the X-ray Map Simulator, X-MAS, to provide Chandra-like long exposures that are analyzed to reconstruct the gas temperature, density, and mass profiles used as input. We find that at R_2500 the mass profile obtained via a direct application of the hydrostatic equilibrium equation is consistent within 1 sigma with the actual mass; ...