Testing X-ray Measurements of Galaxy Cluster Gas Mass Fraction Using the Cosmic Distance-Duality Relation

Abstract: We propose a consistency test of some recent X-ray gas mass fraction ($f_{\rm{gas}}$) measurements in galaxy clusters, using the cosmic distance-duality relation, $\eta_{\rm{theory}}=\dl(1+z)^{-2}/\da$, with luminosity distance ($\dl$) data from the Union2 compilation of type Ia supernovae. We set $\eta_{\rm{theory}}\equiv1$, instead of assigning any redshift parameterizations to it, and constrain the cosmological information preferred by $f_{\rm{gas}}$ data along with supernova observations. We adopt a new binning method in the reduction of the Union2 data, in order to minimize the statistical errors. Four data sets of X-ray gas mass fraction, which are reported by Allen et al. (2 samples), LaRoque et al. and Ettori et al., are detailedly analyzed against two theoretical modelings of $f_{\rm{gas}}$. The results from the analysis of Allen et al.'s samples prove the feasibility of our method. It is found that the preferred cosmology by LaRoque et al.'s sample is consistent with its reference cosmology within 1-$\sigma$ confidence level. However, for Ettori et al.'s $f_{\rm{gas}}$ sample, the inconsistency can reach more than 3-$\sigma$ confidence level and this dataset shows special preference to an $\Ol=0$ cosmology.