X-ray Measurements of the Shapes of Clusters and Galaxies

Abstract

We summarize a series of papers reporting studies of the ellipticities of X-ray images of five Abell clusters and two early type galaxies to learn about the shape of the gravitational potential and the underlying matter distributions. For the clusters we find the dark matter is centrally concentrated with ellipticity $ε_{DM} \sim 0.5$. For the galaxies we find independent evidence for extended, flattened dark matter halos. One case of a clear isophotal twist in the X-rays may indicate a triaxial halo.