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L. Grego, J. M. Vrtilek, L. David, W. Forman (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)
Clusters of galaxies are believed to be the largest virialized structures in the Universe and are believed to have formed by a process of hierarchical merging. Evidence of cluster substructure provides information on the merger history of the clusters and can be used to constrain cosmological models. Substructure in the intra-cluster medium (ICM), may also be a significant source of systematic error in gas mass fraction and distance measurements made from cluster observations.
We use a sample of x-ray luminous clusters to characterize substructure in the ICM of 24 nearby (z<0.2) clusters. Using a wavelet decomposition technique on ROSAT PSPC images, we locate and quantify significant structure in the images. We present and discuss the results for the sample.