skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Search for: All records

Creators/Authors contains: "Randall, Scott"

Note: When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
What is a DOI Number?

Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.

  1. Abstract We present joint South Pole Telescope and XMM-Newton observations of eight massive galaxy clusters (0.8–2 × 1015M) spanning a redshift range of 0.16–0.35. Employing a novel Sunyaev–Zel’dovich + X-ray fitting technique, we effectively constrain the thermodynamic properties of these clusters out to the virial radius. The resulting best-fit electron density, deprojected temperature, and deprojected pressure profiles are in good agreement with previous observations of massive clusters. For the majority of the cluster sample (five out of eight clusters), the entropy profiles exhibit a self-similar behavior near the virial radius. We further derive hydrostatic mass, gas mass, and gas fraction profiles for all clusters up to the virial radius. Comparing the enclosed gas fraction profiles with the universal gas fraction profile, we obtain nonthermal pressure fraction profiles for our cluster sample at  >0.5R500, demonstrating a steeper increase betweenR500andR200that is consistent with the hydrodynamical simulations. Our analysis yields nonthermal pressure fraction ranges of 8%–28% (median: 15% ± 11%) atR500and 21%–35% (median: 27% ± 12%) atR200. Notably, weak-lensing mass measurements are available for only four clusters in our sample, and our recovered total cluster masses, after accounting for nonthermal pressure, are consistent with these measurements. 
    more » « less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available May 7, 2026
  2. ABSTRACT We report results from deep Suzaku and mostly snapshot Chandra observations of four nearby galaxy groups: MKW4, Antlia, RXJ1159+5531, and ESO3060170. Their peak temperatures vary over 2–3 keV, making them the smallest systems with gas properties constrained to their viral radii. The average Fe abundance in the outskirts (R > 0.25R200) of their intragroup medium is $$Z_{\rm Fe}=0.309\pm 0.018\, Z_\odot$$ with χ2 = 14 for 12 degrees of freedom, which is remarkably uniform and strikingly similar to that of massive galaxy clusters, and is fully consistent with the numerical predictions from the IllustrisTNG cosmological simulation. Our results support an early-enrichment scenario among galactic systems over an order of magnitude in mass, even before their formation. When integrated out to R200, we start to see a tension between the measured Fe content in intracluster medium and what is expected from supernovae yields. We further constrain their O, Mg, Si, S, and Ni abundances. The abundance ratios of those elements relative to Fe are consistent with the predictions (if available) from IllustrisTNG. Their Type Ia supernovae fraction varies between 14 per cent and 21 per cent. A pure core-collapsed supernovae enrichment at group outskirts can be ruled out. Their cumulative iron-mass-to-light ratios within R200 are half that of the Perseus cluster, which may imply that galaxy groups do not retain all of their enriched gas due to their shallower gravitational potential wells, or that groups and clusters may have different star formation histories. 
    more » « less