ROSAT Observations of the Sculptor/Phoenix Supercluster
Session 60 -- Intergalactic Medium
Display presentation, Thursday, 2, 1994, 9:20-6:30

## [60.04] ROSAT Observations of the Sculptor/Phoenix Supercluster

P.P. Plucinsky (SAO), R.G. Cruddace (NRL), S.L. Snowden (NASA-GSFC), H. MacGillivray (ROE), W. Voges and, G. Hartner (MPE)

We present a preliminary analysis of two ROSAT observations of the Sculptor/Phoenix supercluster. The pointings were positioned to facilitate a search for diffuse X-ray emission from the intrasupercluster gas. Previous searches in other superclusters have concentrated on the 2-10~keV band and have only been able to place upper limits on the diffuse emission. One theory of supercluster formation predicts that the intrasupercluster gas has a characteristic temperature of $10^6~{\rm K}$, not $10^8~{\rm K}$. The Sculptor/Phoenix supercluster is fortuitously located along a line of sight in which the foreground X-ray emission and neutral hydrogen column density are low, thereby increasing the likliehood of detecting faint diffuse emission in the ROSAT band. We present the preliminary results of a search for diffuse emission and a spectral analysis of the brightest sources.