Detection of bulk motions in the intracluster medium of the Centaurus cluster

Several recent numerical simulations of off-center cluster mergers predict that significant angular momentum with associated velocities of a few x 10(3) km s(-1) can be imparted to the resulting cluster. Such gas bulk velocities can be detected by the Doppler shift of X-ray spectral lines with ASCA spectrometers. Using two ASCA observations of the Centaurus cluster (Abell 3526), we produced a velocity map for the gas in the cluster's central regions. We also detected radial and azimuthal gradients in temperature and metal abundance distributions, which seem to be associated with the infalling subgroup centered at NGC 4709 (Cen 45). More importantly, we found a significant (>99.8% confidence level) velocity gradient along a line near-perpendicular to the direction of the incoming subgroup and with a maximum velocity difference of similar to3.4 +/- 1.1 x 10(3) km s(-1). It is unlikely (P < 0.002) that the observed velocity gradient is generated by gain fluctuations across the detectors. While the observed azimuthal temperature and abundance variations can be attributed to the interaction with Cen 45, we argue that the intracluster gas velocity gradient is more likely due to a previous off-center merging event in the main body of the Centaurus cluster.