A series of shocks and edges in Abell 2219

Abstract

We present deep, 170 ks, Chandra X-ray observations of Abell 2219 (z = 0.23), one of the hottest and most X-ray luminous clusters known, and which is experiencing a major merger event. We discover a ‘horseshoe’ of high-temperature gas surrounding the ram-pressure-stripped, bright, hot, X-ray cores. We confirm an X-ray shock front located north-west of the X-ray centroid and along the projected merger axis. We also find a second shock front to the south-east of the X-ray centroid making this only the second cluster where both the shock and reverse shock are confirmed with X-ray temperature measurements. We also present evidence for a possible sloshing cold front in the ‘remnant tail’ of one of the sub-cluster cores. The cold front and north-west shock front geometrically bound the radio halo and appear to be directly influencing the radio properties of the cluster.