Recovering true metal abundances of the ICM

Abstract

Recovering the true average abundance of the intracluster medium (ICM) is crucial for estimates of its global metal content, which in turn is linked to its past evolution and to the star formation history of the stellar component of the cluster. We analyze here how the presence of abundance gradients affects commonly adopted estimates of the average abundance, assuming various plausible ICM density and temperature profiles. We find that, adopting the observed abundance gradients, the true average mass weighted abundance is less than (although not largely deviating from) the commonly used emission weighted abundance.