English

Cluster Core Heating from Merging Subclusters

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2015-05-14 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

Though feedback from central active galactic nuclei provides an attractive solution to the problem of overcooling in galaxy cluster cores, another possible source of heating may come from ``sloshing'' of the cluster core gas initiated by mergers. We present a set of simulations of galaxy cluster mergers with subclusters in order to determine the amount of heating provided by the mechanism of sloshing, exploring a parameter space over mass ratio, impact parameter, and viscosity of the intracluster medium (ICM). Our results show that for sloshing caused by mergers with gasless subclusters cooling may be partially offset by heating from sloshing, but this mechanism is less effective if the ICM is viscous.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0909.0560,
  title  = {Cluster Core Heating from Merging Subclusters},
  author = {J. A. ZuHone and M. Markevitch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0909.0560},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

To appear in proceedings of "The Monster's Fiery Breath", Eds. Sebastian Heinz & Eric Wilcots (AIP conference series). 4 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:42:03.845Z