Chandra temperature and metallicity maps of the Perseus cluster core

We present temperature and metallicity maps of the Perseus cluster core obtained with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. We find an overall temperature rise from similar to3.0 keV in the core to similar to5.5 keV at 120 kpc and a metallicity profile that rises slowly from similar to0.5 solar to similar to0.6 solar inside 60 kpc, but drops to similar to0.4 solar at 120 kpc. Spatially resolved spectroscopy in small cells shows that the temperature distribution in the Perseus cluster is not symmetrical. There is a wealth of structure in the temperature map on scales of similar to10 arcsec (5.2 kpc) showing swirliness and a temperature rise that coincides with a sudden surface brightness drop in the X-ray image. We obtain a metallicity map of the Perseus cluster core and find that the spectra extracted from the two central X-ray holes as well as the western X-ray hole are best-fit by gas with higher temperature and higher metallicity than is found in the surroundings of the holes. A spectral deprojection analysis suggests, however, that this is due to a projection effect; for the northern X-ray hole we find tight limits on the presence of an isothermal component in the X-ray hole, ruling out volume-filling X-ray gas with temperatures below 11 keV at 3sigma.