Ranking Theoretical Supernovae Explosion Models from Observations of the Intracluster Gas

The intracluster medium (ICM) is a reservoir of heavy elements synthesized by different supernovae (SNe) types over cosmic history. Different enrichment mechanisms contribute a different relative metal production, predominantly caused by different SNe type dominance. Using spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy, one can probe the contribution of each metal-enrichment mechanism. However, a large variety of physically feasible supernova (SN) explosion models make the analysis of the ICM enrichment history more uncertain. This paper presents a nonparametric probability distribution function analysis to rank different theoretical SNe yields models by comparing their performance against observations. Specifically, we apply this new methodology to rank 7192 combinations of core-collapse SN and Type Ia SN models using eight abundance ratios from Suzaku observations of 18 galaxy systems (clusters and groups) to test their predictions. This novel technique can compare many SN models and maximize spectral information extraction, considering all the individual measurable abundance ratios and their uncertainties. We find that Type II SNe with nonzero initial metallicity progenitors in general performed better than pair-instability SN and hypernova models, and that 3D SNIa models (with a white dwarf progenitor central density of 2.9 x 10(9) g cm(-3)) performed best among all tested SN model pairs.