Metallicity gradients in X-ray clusters of galaxies

We present the projected metallicity profiles for a sample of 17 rich galax y clusters observed by BeppoSAX. We find that the eight non-cooling flow cl usters have flat metallicity profiles. A strong enhancement in the abundanc e is found in the central regions of the cooling flow clusters. All the non -cooling flow clusters present evidence of recent merger activity, suggesti ng that the merger events redistribute efficiently the metal content of the intracluster medium. For the cooling flow clusters with better statistics and available optical data (A85, A496, A2029, and Perseus), we have tested whether the observed abundance excess is due to metals ejected from the gal axies located in the cluster core. We find that at a resolution greater tha n or similar to 100 kpc the observed projected abundance-excess profiles ar e consistent with those originating from a deprojected metal excess distrib ution tracing the optical light distribution. In the one case (Perseus) wit h higher resolution (similar to 50 kpc), we find that the observed metal ab undance-excess distribution is broader than the predicted one. Such a diffe rence can be reconciled if we assume that the metals have drifted away from their parent ejecting galaxies by a few tens of kiloparsecs, or, alternati vely, if we assume that the cluster light profile has become significantly more centrally peaked because of the formation process of the central domin ant cluster galaxy since the last major merger occurred.