Internal dynamics of the massive cluster Abell 697: a multiwavelength analysis

Aims. We conduct an intensive study of the rich, X-ray luminous, and hot galaxy cluster Abell 697 (at z = 0.282), likely containing a diffuse radio-emission, to determine its dynamical status. Methods. Our analysis is based on new spectroscopic data obtained at the TNG telescope for 93 galaxies and on new photometric data obtained at the INT telescope in a large field. We combine galaxy velocity and position information to select 68 cluster members (out to ∼1.3 h −1 70 Mpc from the cD galaxy), determine global dynamical properties, and detect possible substructures. The investigation of the dynamical status is also performed by using X-ray data stored in the Chandra archive. Results. We compute the line-of-sight (LOS) velocity dispersion of galaxies, σv = 1334 +114 −95 km s −1 , in agreement with the high average X-ray temperature TX = (10.2±0.8) keV recovered from Chandra data, as expected in the case of energy-density equipartition between galaxies and gas. Assuming that the cluster is in dynamical equilibrium and mass follows the galaxy distribution, we find that A697 is a very massive cluster obtaining M(