Temperature, Abundance, and Mass Density Profiling of the Perseus Galaxy
  Cluster
  Detailed temperature and abundance radial profile maps have revealed a
significant lack of homogeneity within the Perseus Galaxy cluster. Previous
surveys of Perseus with the Suzaku telescope, which has a worse angular
resolution and less light collecting area than XMM-Newton, revealed
over-densities of X-Ray emission. These results provide evidence that the
baryon fraction exceeds the universal average, which we had initially hoped to
study. We have yet to confirm or deny the existence of clumping in these
regions, which could explain such over-abundance of X-Ray emission. This
project offers a framework of efficient, automated processing techniques to
"clean" images of noise from the mechanics of the telescope, background
radiation from local sources such as the solar wind, and more distant sources
such as background AGN. The galaxy cluster studied in this project contains
high levels of contamination due to its line-of-sight position close to the
dust- and star-filled arms of the Milky Way galaxy. Rigorous spectral model
fitting of the cluster employ multiple parameters dedicated to accounting for
these contaminations. The framework created from this analysis technique will
provide the opportunity to expand this analysis to any nearby galaxy cluster,
such as the Virgo, Coma, and Ophiuchus Clusters. This research should provide
significant insight into how matter, both baryonic and dark matter, is
distributed throughout diffuse cluster systems, as well as give clues to the
origin of the ICM.
