XMM-Newton study of six massive, X-ray luminous galaxy cluster systems in the redshift range z = 0.25–0.5

Abstract

Massive galaxy clusters are interesting astrophysical and cosmological objects to study, but they are relatively rare. In the redshift range z = 0.25–0.5 which is, for example, a favourable region for gravitational lensing studies, about 100 such systems are known. Most of them have been studied in X-rays. In this paper we study the six remaining massive clusters in this redshift interval in the highly complete CLASSIX (Cosmic Large-Scale Structure in X-rays) survey which have so far not been observed with sufficiently deep exposures in X-rays. With data from our new XMM-Newton observations we characterise their structures, derive X-ray properties such as the X-ray luminosity and intracluster medium temperature, and estimate their gas and total masses. We find that one cluster, RXCJ1230.7+3439, is dynamically young with three distinct substructures in the cluster outskirts and RXCJ1310.9+2157/RXCJ1310.4+2151 is a double cluster system. Mass determination is difficult in the systems with substructure. We therefore discuss several methods of mass estimation including scaling relations. In summary, we find that five of the six targets of study are indeed massive clusters as expected, while the last cluster RXCJ2116.2−0309 is a close projection of a distant and a nearby cluster which has led to a previous overestimation of its mass. In the XMM-Newton observation fields, we also find three low redshift clusters close to the targets which are also analysed and described here. In the field of RXCJ2116.2−0309, we discover serendipitously a highly variable X-ray source which has decreased its flux within a year by more than a factor of eight. This source is most probably an active galactic nucleus (AGN).