Abell 2261: a fossil galaxy cluster in a transition phase

Fossil galaxy cluster has a dominant central elliptical galaxy (${\Delta}M12$ >2 in 0.5Rvir) embedded in highly relaxed X-ray halo, which indicates dynamically stable and passively evolved system. These features are expected as a final stage of the cluster evolution in the hierarchical structure formation paradigm. It is known that Abell 2261(A2261 hereafter) is classified as a fossil cluster, but has unusual features such as a high central X-ray entropy (i.e., non-cool core system), which is not expected in normal fossil clusters. We perform a kinematic study with a spectroscopic data of 589 galaxies in the A2261 field. We define cluster member galaxies using the caustic method and discover a new second bright galaxy at ~1.5 Rvir (nearly the splash-back region). It implies the current fossil state of the cluster can break in the near future. In addition, with three independent substructure finding methods, we find that A2261 has many substructures within 3 Mpc from the center of the cluster. These findings support that A2261 is not in a dynamically stable state. We argue that A2261 is in a transitional phase of dynamical evolution of the galaxy cluster and maybe previously defined fossil cluster does not mean the final stage of the evolution of galaxy clusters.