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The bulk motion of gas in the core of the Centaurus galaxy cluster

Nature volume 638, pages 365–369 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Galaxy clusters contain vast amounts of hot ionized gas known as the intracluster medium (ICM). In relaxed cluster cores, the radiative cooling time of the ICM is shorter than the age of the cluster. However, the absence of line emission associated with cooling suggests heating mechanisms that offset the cooling, with feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) being the most likely source1,2. Turbulence and bulk motions, such as the oscillating (‘sloshing’) motion of the core gas in the cluster potential well, have also been proposed as mechanisms for heat distribution from the outside of the core3,4. Here we present X-ray spectroscopic observations of the Centaurus galaxy cluster with the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission satellite. We find that the hot gas flows along the line of sight relative to the central galaxy, with velocities from 130 km s−1 to 310 km s−1 within about 30 kpc of the centre. This indicates bulk flow consistent with core gas sloshing. Although the bulk flow may prevent excessive accumulation of cooled gas at the centre, it could distribute the heat injected by the AGN and bring in thermal energy from the surrounding ICM. The velocity dispersion of the gas is found to be only ≲120 km s−1 in the core, even within about 10 kpc of the AGN. This suggests that the influence of the AGN on the surrounding ICM motion is limited in the cluster.

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Fig. 1: Resolve FOV superimposed on the Chandra X-ray images.
Fig. 2: Resolve spectrum observed for the FOV in the 1.8–8.0 keV band.
Fig. 3: Maps for bulk and turbulent velocities.
Fig. 4: Schematic of the sloshing.

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Data availability

The observational data analysed during this study will be available in the NASA HEASARC repository (https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xrism/) in the summer of 2025. The atomic databases used in this study are also available online (AtomDB, http://www.atomdb.org/). Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (grant nos JP22H00158, JP22H01268, JP22K03624, JP23H04899, JP21K13963, JP24K00638, JP24K17105, JP21K13958, JP21H01095, JP23K20850, JP24H00253, JP21K03615, JP24K00677, JP20K14491, JP23H00151, JP19K21884, JP20H01947, JP20KK0071, JP23K20239, JP24K00672, JP24K17104, JP24K17093, JP20K04009, JP21H04493, JP20H01946, JP23K13154, JP19K14762, JP20H05857 and JP23K03459) and NASA (grant nos 80NSSC23K0650, 80NSSC20K0733, 80NSSC18K0978, 80NSSC20K0883, 80NSSC20K0737, 80NSSC24K0678, 80NSSC18K1684 and 80NNSC22K1922). L.C. acknowledges support from NSF award 2205918. C.D. acknowledges support from STFC through grant ST/T000244/1 and a Leverhulme International Fellowship IF-2024-020. L. Gallo acknowledges financial support from the Canadian Space Agency grant 18XARMSTMA. A.T. and the present research are in part supported by the Kagoshima University postdoctoral research program (KU-DREAM). S. Yamada acknowledges support from the RIKEN SPDR Program. I.Z. acknowledges partial support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation through the Sloan Research Fellowship. M. Sawada acknowledges the support from the RIKEN Pioneering Project Evolution of Matter in the Universe (r-EMU) and the Rikkyo University Special Fund for Research (Rikkyo SFR). N.W. and T.P. acknowledge the financial support of the GAČR EXPRO (grant no. 21-13491X). Part of this work was performed under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. The material is based on the work supported by NASA under award no. 80GSFC21M0002. This work was supported by the JSPS Core-to-Core Program (JPJSCCA20220002). The material is based on the work supported by the Strategic Research Center of Saitama University.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Marc Audard, Dominique Eckert & Stephane Paltani

  2. Department of Physics, Ehime University, Matsuyama, Japan

    Hisamitsu Awaki, Megumi Shidatsu & Yuichi Terashima

  3. Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Ralf Ballhausen, Michael Loewenstein, François Mernier, Richard Mushotzky & Anna Ogorzalek

  4. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Ralf Ballhausen, Rozenn Boissay-Malaquin, Renata Cumbee, Javier A. García, Kenji Hamaguchi, Takayuki Hayashi, Edmund Hodges-Kluck, Ann Hornschemeier, Timothy Kallman, Richard Kelley, Caroline Kilbourne, Maurice Leutenegger, Michael Loewenstein, Maxim Markevitch, François Mernier, Koji Mukai, Anna Ogorzalek, Takashi Okajima, Robert Petre, Frederick Scott Porter, Katja Pottschmidt, Keisuke Tamura, Brian J. Williams, Tahir Yaqoob & Mihoko Yukita

  5. Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology, NASA/GSFC (CRESST II), Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Ralf Ballhausen, Rozenn Boissay-Malaquin, Kenji Hamaguchi, Takayuki Hayashi, Michael Loewenstein, François Mernier, Koji Mukai, Anna Ogorzalek, Katja Pottschmidt, Keisuke Tamura & Tahir Yaqoob

  6. Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Aya Bamba & Kouichi Hagino

  7. Department of Physics, Technion, Haifa, Israel

    Ehud Behar

  8. Center for Space Science and Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Rozenn Boissay-Malaquin, Kenji Hamaguchi, Takayuki Hayashi, Koji Mukai, Katja Pottschmidt, Keisuke Tamura & Tahir Yaqoob

  9. Center for Astrophysics | Harvard-Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Laura Brenneman, Adam Foster, Paul Plucinsky & Randall Smith

  10. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    Gregory V. Brown, Megan E. Eckart & Natalie Hell

  11. Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Lia Corrales & Jon M. Miller

  12. SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Elisa Costantini, Liyi Gu, Jelle Kaastra, Aurora Simionescu & Anwesh Majumder

  13. Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Department of Physics, University of Durham, Durham, UK

    Chris Done

  14. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Kanagawa, Japan

    Tadayasu Dotani, Ken Ebisawa, Ryuichi Fujimoto, Kotaro Fukushima, Katsuhiro Hayashi, Manabu Ishida, Yoshiaki Kanemaru, Yoshitomo Maeda, Shoji Ogawa, Hiromasa Suzuki, Makoto Tashiro, Yukikatsu Terada, Masahiro Tsujimoto, Nagomi Uchida, Shin Watanabe, Hiroya Yamaguchi, Noriko Y. Yamasaki & Tessei Yoshida

  15. Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Teruaki Enoto, Takeshi G. Tsuru & Hiroyuki Uchida

  16. Department of Economics, Kumamoto Gakuen University, Kumamoto, Japan

    Satoshi Eguchi

  17. Department of Physics, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan

    Yuichiro Ezoe, Yutaka Fujita, Kumi Ishikawa, Yoshitaka Ishisaki & Hiromi Seta

  18. Department of Physics, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan

    Yasushi Fukazawa & Hiromitsu Takahashi

  19. Department of Physics, Fujita Health University, Toyoake, Japan

    Akihiro Furuzawa

  20. Department of Astronomy and Physics, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax Nova Scotia, Canada

    Luigi Gallo

  21. Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Javier A. García

  22. European Space Agency (ESA), European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Noordwijk, The Netherlands

    Matteo Guainazzi

  23. Faculty of Engineering, University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki, Japan

    Isamu Hatsukade, Koji Mori & Makoto Yamauchi

  24. RIKEN Nishina Center, Saitama, Japan

    Yuto Ichinohe & Toru Tamagawa

  25. Leiden Observatory, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Jelle Kaastra

  26. Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Erin Kara & Eric D. Miller

  27. Department of Physics, Saitama University, Saitama, Japan

    Satoru Katsuda, Kosuke Sato, Mai Takeo, Makoto Tashiro, Yukikatsu Terada & Marie Kondo

  28. Department of Physics, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan

    Shunji Kitamoto, Makoto Sawada & Shinya Yamada

  29. Faculty of Physics, Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan

    Shogo Kobayashi & Kyoko Matsushita

  30. Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, Chiba, Japan

    Takayoshi Kohmura & Yuusuke Uchida

  31. Department of Electronic Information Systems, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Saitama, Japan

    Aya Kubota

  32. Department of Earth and Space Science, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

    Hironori Matsumoto, Hirokazu Odaka & Hiroshi Tsunemi

  33. Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Dan McCammon

  34. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics, University of Waterloo, Waterloo Ontario, Canada

    Brian McNamara

  35. Department of Physics, Nagoya University, Nayoga, Japan

    Ikuyuki Mitsuishi, Kazuhiro Nakazawa & Kazutaka Yamaoka

  36. Science Research Education Unit, University of Teacher Education Fukuoka, Munakata, Japan

    Misaki Mizumoto

  37. Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan

    Tsunefumi Mizuno

  38. Department of Data Science, Tohoku Gakuin University, Sendai, Japan

    Hiroshi Murakami

  39. College of Science and Engineering, Kanto Gakuin University, Yokohama, Japan

    Hiroshi Nakajima

  40. European Space Agency (ESA), European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), Madrid, Spain

    Jan-Uwe Ness

  41. Department of Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering, KINDAI University, Osaka, Japan

    Kumiko Nobukawa

  42. Department of Teacher Training and School Education, Nara University of Education, Nara, Japan

    Masayoshi Nobukawa

  43. Astronomical Institute, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

    Hirofumi Noda

  44. Department of Physics, Nara Women’s University, Nara, Japan

    Naomi Ota & Shigeo Yamauchi

  45. International Center for Quantum-field Measurement Systems for Studies of the Universe and Particles (QUP)/High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba, Japan

    Kosuke Sato

  46. School of Science and Technology, Meiji University, Kawasaki, Japan

    Toshiki Sato

  47. Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Andrew Szymkowiak

  48. Department of Physics, Konan University, Kobe, Japan

    Takaaki Tanaka

  49. Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Kagoshima University, Kagoshima, Japan

    Atsushi Tanimoto

  50. ESO Supernova, Garching bei München, Germany

    María Díaz Trigo

  51. Department of Physics, Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan

    Yohko Tsuboi & Tomokage Yoneyama

  52. Faculty of Education, Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, Japan

    Hideki Uchiyama

  53. Department of Astronomy, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Yoshihiro Ueda

  54. Nihon Fukushi University, Shizuoka, Japan

    Shinichiro Uno

  55. Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Jacco Vink

  56. RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research, Saitama, Japan

    Satoshi Yamada

  57. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Mihoko Yukita

  58. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Irina Zhuravleva

  59. Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Norbert Werner & Tomáš Plšek

  60. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, USA

    Ming Sun & Kokoro Hosogi

  61. Astronomical Institute ‘Anton Pannekoek’, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Anwesh Majumder

Consortia

XRISM collaboration

  • Marc Audard
  • , Hisamitsu Awaki
  • , Ralf Ballhausen
  • , Aya Bamba
  • , Ehud Behar
  • , Rozenn Boissay-Malaquin
  • , Laura Brenneman
  • , Gregory V. Brown
  • , Lia Corrales
  • , Elisa Costantini
  • , Renata Cumbee
  • , Chris Done
  • , Tadayasu Dotani
  • , Ken Ebisawa
  • , Megan E. Eckart
  • , Dominique Eckert
  • , Teruaki Enoto
  • , Satoshi Eguchi
  • , Yuichiro Ezoe
  • , Adam Foster
  • , Ryuichi Fujimoto
  • , Yutaka Fujita
  • , Yasushi Fukazawa
  • , Kotaro Fukushima
  • , Akihiro Furuzawa
  • , Luigi Gallo
  • , Javier A. García
  • , Liyi Gu
  • , Matteo Guainazzi
  • , Kouichi Hagino
  • , Kenji Hamaguchi
  • , Isamu Hatsukade
  • , Katsuhiro Hayashi
  • , Takayuki Hayashi
  • , Natalie Hell
  • , Edmund Hodges-Kluck
  • , Ann Hornschemeier
  • , Yuto Ichinohe
  • , Manabu Ishida
  • , Kumi Ishikawa
  • , Yoshitaka Ishisaki
  • , Jelle Kaastra
  • , Timothy Kallman
  • , Erin Kara
  • , Satoru Katsuda
  • , Yoshiaki Kanemaru
  • , Richard Kelley
  • , Caroline Kilbourne
  • , Shunji Kitamoto
  • , Shogo Kobayashi
  • , Takayoshi Kohmura
  • , Aya Kubota
  • , Maurice Leutenegger
  • , Michael Loewenstein
  • , Yoshitomo Maeda
  • , Maxim Markevitch
  • , Hironori Matsumoto
  • , Kyoko Matsushita
  • , Dan McCammon
  • , Brian McNamara
  • , François Mernier
  • , Eric D. Miller
  • , Jon M. Miller
  • , Ikuyuki Mitsuishi
  • , Misaki Mizumoto
  • , Tsunefumi Mizuno
  • , Koji Mori
  • , Koji Mukai
  • , Hiroshi Murakami
  • , Richard Mushotzky
  • , Hiroshi Nakajima
  • , Kazuhiro Nakazawa
  • , Jan-Uwe Ness
  • , Kumiko Nobukawa
  • , Masayoshi Nobukawa
  • , Hirofumi Noda
  • , Hirokazu Odaka
  • , Shoji Ogawa
  • , Anna Ogorzalek
  • , Takashi Okajima
  • , Naomi Ota
  • , Stephane Paltani
  • , Robert Petre
  • , Paul Plucinsky
  • , Frederick Scott Porter
  • , Katja Pottschmidt
  • , Kosuke Sato
  • , Toshiki Sato
  • , Makoto Sawada
  • , Hiromi Seta
  • , Megumi Shidatsu
  • , Aurora Simionescu
  • , Randall Smith
  • , Hiromasa Suzuki
  • , Andrew Szymkowiak
  • , Hiromitsu Takahashi
  • , Mai Takeo
  • , Toru Tamagawa
  • , Keisuke Tamura
  • , Takaaki Tanaka
  • , Atsushi Tanimoto
  • , Makoto Tashiro
  • , Yukikatsu Terada
  • , Yuichi Terashima
  • , María Díaz Trigo
  • , Yohko Tsuboi
  • , Masahiro Tsujimoto
  • , Hiroshi Tsunemi
  • , Takeshi G. Tsuru
  • , Hiroyuki Uchida
  • , Nagomi Uchida
  • , Yuusuke Uchida
  • , Hideki Uchiyama
  • , Yoshihiro Ueda
  • , Shinichiro Uno
  • , Jacco Vink
  • , Shin Watanabe
  • , Brian J. Williams
  • , Satoshi Yamada
  • , Shinya Yamada
  • , Hiroya Yamaguchi
  • , Kazutaka Yamaoka
  • , Noriko Y. Yamasaki
  • , Makoto Yamauchi
  • , Shigeo Yamauchi
  • , Tahir Yaqoob
  • , Tomokage Yoneyama
  • , Tessei Yoshida
  • , Mihoko Yukita
  • , Irina Zhuravleva
  • , Marie Kondo
  • , Norbert Werner
  • , Tomáš Plšek
  • , Ming Sun
  • , Kokoro Hosogi
  •  & Anwesh Majumder

Contributions

As the leader of the Centaurus cluster target team in the XRISM Science Team, Y. Fujita led this research project and wrote the paper. K.S. is the sub-leader of the target team, led the data analysis and prepared the manuscript. He also contributed to the Resolve hardware development, integration tests, launch campaign, in-orbit operation and calibration. K.F., F.M., K. Matsushita, A. Simionescu, M.K. and A.M. analysed the data. Y. Fujita, K.S., K.F., F.M., K.M., A. Simionescu, and K. Nakazawa discussed the results. T.H., T.O., K.T., Y. M., M. Lowenstein, T. Yaqoob, E.D.M., M. Markevitch, F.S.P., M. Leutenegger, C.K. and R.K. contributed to the comments on data calibration and systematic errors, as well as on the content of the paper. M. Sun, K. Hosogi, N.W. and T.P. provided additional data and analysis. R.M., I.Z. and E.B. helped to improve the manuscript. The science goals of XRISM were discussed and developed over 7 years by the XRISM Science Team, all members of which are authors of this paper. All the instruments were prepared by the joint efforts of the team. The manuscript was subject to an internal collaboration-wide review process. All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yutaka Fujita or Kosuke Sato.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature thanks Stefano Borgani and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Representative spectra from and the best-fitting models, including the SSM effect.

a, Broadband and b, zoom-in spectra around He-α-Fe lines for the Central region. c,d, Those for the SW region. Green thick solid line in upper panels show the sum of the total emissions from all the regions. The grey thin solid lines indicate the NXB model. Each coloured line except for the green represents the contribution from one region to the total spectrum in the centre (left) and SW (right) regions. Note that two temperature components in the Central region are shown in two red thick solid lines.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Chandra X-ray images of the Centaurus core.

Left, soft band (0.5–1.2 keV) image with main features highlighted. The white dashed line shows the XRISM Resolve FOV. The black cross indicates the position of the central AGN of galaxy NGC4696 separated by 1 kpc from the X-ray peak of the Centaurus cluster (red cross). Right, hard band (2.0–7.0 keV) image with the best estimates of the cavity borders by CADET for individual detected cavity generations.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Temperature, electron density, metal abundance, and entropy profiles.

They are obtained from deprojection analysis of broad (black points) and hard (red points) band Chandra data.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Flux, velocity and velocity dispersion maps of the warm, ionized gas at the centre of NGC 4696.

They are traced by the strongest optical line [N II] λ6584 from the MUSE data. The nucleus is at the (0, 0) position. The velocity is relative to the system velocity of 3008 km/s.

Extended Data Table 1 Parameters for regions shown in Fig. 1 obtained with Resolve
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Properties of individual cavity generations
Full size table

Supplementary information

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XRISM collaboration. The bulk motion of gas in the core of the Centaurus galaxy cluster. Nature 638, 365–369 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08561-z

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