Metal Enrichment Discriminators of Cold Fronts

Abstract

Cold fronts are sharp surface brightness discontinuities characterized by a jump in gas temperature accompanied by a decline in X-ray surface brightness such that the gas pressure remains continuous across the front and, thus, these structures differ from bow shocks. Models suggest that cold fronts can be generated by external mechanisms involving the accretion of a subsystem with a remnant "cold core". However, internal mechanisms can also create cold fronts, such as gravitational scattering of subclumps or cD oscillation around the bottom of the potential well. These competing models for their formation can be discriminated through the measurements of the SN Type contamination across the front, which in turn can be determined from metal abundance ratios as measured from an ensemble of elements. Here we present the preliminary results of such analysis using a sample of clusters observed with Chandra.