Evolution of X-ray Luminosity Function of Rich Abell Clusters

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Session 74 -- Clusters of Galaxies II: X-Rays
Display presentation, Wednesday, 11, 1995, 9:20am - 6:30pm

[74.01] Evolution of X-ray Luminosity Function of Rich Abell Clusters

Laurence P. David, William Forman, Christine Jones (SAO)

Over 1000 Abell clusters lie within the field of view of pointed ROSAT PSPC observations with average exposure times of 10 to 20 times that in the all sky survey. At present, we have analyzed the PSPC data of the optically richest ($R {_>\atop^{-}} 2$) Abell clusters (a total of 140 clusters). The exposure times in these pointed observations are sufficiently long to determine the x-ray flux, luminosity, morphology, and provide some temperature and abundance information. Over the past few years there have been several reports regarding the negative x-ray luminosity evolution of rich clusters. The luminosity evolution is the most dramatic in the richest, most x-ray luminous clusters and should be a very significant effect in our sample of rich Abell clusters. We will present X-ray luminosity functions within several redshift bins of $R {_>\atop^{-}} 2$ Abell clusters out to $z \approx 0.3$. Prior studies regarding the evolution of clusters have been based solely on x-ray luminosities. We will also show how the x-ray morphologies and gas temperatures of optically rich clusters have evolved within the recent past.

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