SNe heating and the chemical evolution of the intra-cluster medium

Abstract

We compute the chemical and thermal history of the intra-cluster medium in rich and poor clusters under the assumption that supernovae (I, II) are the major responsible both for the chemical enrichment and the heating of the intra-cluster gas. We assume that only ellipticals and S0 galaxies contribute to the enrichment and heating of the intra-cluster gas through supernova driven winds and explore several prescriptions for describing the feedback between supernovae and the interstellar medium in galaxies. We then integrate the chemical and energetical contributions from single cluster galaxies over the cluster luminosity function and derive the variations of these quantities as functions of the cosmic time. We reach the following conclusions: (i) while type II supernovae dominates the chemical enrichment and energetics inside the galaxies, type Ia supernovae play a predominant role in the intra-cluster medium, (ii) galaxy models, which reproduce the observed chemical abundances and abundance ratios in the intra-cluster medium, predict a maximum of 0.3–0.4 keV per particle of energy input, a result obtained by assuming that type Ia supernovae contribute 100% of their initial blast wave energy whereas type II supernovae contribute only a few percents of their initial energy.