  Analysis of a 30,000 s X-ray observation of the Abell 3266 galaxy cluster
with the ACIS on board the Chandra Observatory has produced several new
insights into the cluster merger. The intracluster medium has a
non-monotonically decreasing radial abundance profile. We argue that the most
plausible origin for the abundance enhancement is unmixed, high abundance
subcluster gas from the merger. The enrichment consists of two stages:
off-center deposition of a higher abundance material during a subcluster merger
followed by a strong, localized intracluster wind that acts to drive out the
light elements, producing the observed abundance enhancement. The wind is
needed to account for both an increase in the heavy element abundance and the
lack of an enhancement in the gas density. Dynamical evidence for the wind
includes: (1) a large scale, low surface brightness feature perpendicular to
the merger axis that appears to be an asymmetric pattern of gas flow to the
northwest, away from the center of the main cluster, (2) compressed gas in the
opposite direction (toward the cluster center), and (3), the hottest regions
visible in the temperature map coincide with the proposed merger geometry and
the resultant gas flow. The Chandra data for the central region of the main
cluster shows a slightly cooler, filamentary region that is centered on the
central cD galaxy and is aligned with the merger axis directly linking the
dynamical state of the cD to the merger. Overall, the high spectral/spatial
resolution Chandra observations support our earlier hypothesis (Henriksen,
Donnelly, & Davis 1999) that we are viewing a minor merger in the plane of the
sky.
