Exploring the outskirts of Abell 133 with Suzaku and Chandra observations

Simulations results of the intracluster medium (ICM) in the galaxy cluster indicate that the gas density distribution in the outskirts becomes increasing inhomogenous (i.e. ‘clumpy’). Ignoring the gas clumping will lead to significant systematic bias in the X-ray measurements of ICM properties, in particular for the outskirts. In the past decades, Chandra have accumulated 2.4 Ms ultra-deep exposure on Abell 133 , out to extremely large radii, more importantly Suzaku provides a similar coverage in the outskirts even beyond R200, making Abell 133 a unique laboratory to study the clumping of ICM. We have performed a joint analysis of Suzaku and Chandra observations towards Abell 133 cluster. We attempted to identify significant clumps based on Chandra images, mask them from Suzaku spectral analysis, and obtain clumping-corrected thermodynamic profiles. We found those identified clumps are mainly background clusters or galaxies, instead of genuine inhomogeneity. The clumping-corrected entropy profile still flattens in the outskirts, deviating from the standard power law model.