  Here we present results from over 500 kiloseconds Chandra and XMM-Newton
observations of the cool core of the Centaurus cluster. We investigate the
spatial distributions of the O, Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, and Ni
abundances in the intracluster medium with CCD detectors, and those of N, O,
Ne, Mg, Fe, and Ni with the Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS). The
abundances of most of the elements show a sharp drop within the central 18
arcsec, although different detectors and atomic codes give significantly
different values. The abundance ratios of the above elements, including Ne/Fe
with RGS, show relatively flat radial distributions. In the innermost regions
with the dominant Fe-L lines, the measurements of the absolute abundances are
challenging. For example, AtomDB and SPEXACT give Fe = 0.5 and 1.4 solar,
respectively, for the spectra from the innermost region. These results suggest
some systematic uncertainties in the atomic data and response matrices at least
partly cause the abundance drop rather than the metal depletion into the cold
dust. Except for super-solar N/Fe and Ni/Fe, sub-solar Ne/Fe, and Mg/Fe, the
abundance pattern agrees with the solar composition. The entire pattern is
challenging to reproduce with the latest supernova nucleosynthesis models.
Observed super-solar N/O and comparable Mg abundance to stellar metallicity
profiles imply the mass-loss winds dominate the intracluster medium in the
brightest cluster galaxy. The solar Cr/Fe and Mn/Fe ratios indicate a
significant contribution of near- and sub-Chandrasekhar mass explosions of Type
Ia supernovae.
