Zooming in on the Coma Cluster with Chandra: Compressed Warm Gas in the Brightest Cluster Galaxies

The Chandra image of the central region of the Coma cluster reveals that both its dominant galaxies, NGC 4874 and NGC 4889, retain the central parts of their X-ray gas coronae. The interstellar gas with a temperature of 1– 2 keV is confined by the hot intergalactic medium of the Coma cluster into compact clouds (only 3 kpc in radius) containing 108 M⊙ of gas. The physical state of the gas in these clouds appears to be determined by a delicate balance between the radiative cooling and suppressed (by a factor of 30–100) heat conduction through the interface between these clouds and the hot cluster gas. Subject headings: galaxies: clusters: general — galaxies: clusters: individual (Coma) — magnetic fields — X-rays: galaxies — galaxies: individual (NGC 4874) — galaxies: individual (NGC 4889)