Cool Gas in Clusters of Galaxies
Astrophysics
2007-05-23 v1
Abstract
Early X-ray observations suggested that the intracluster medium cools and condenses at the centers of clusters, leading to a cooling flow of plasma in the cluster core. The increased incidence of emission-line nebulosity, excess blue light, AGN activity, and molecular gas in the cores of clusters with short central cooling times seemed to support this idea. However, high-resolution spectroscopic observations from XMM-Newton and Chandra have conclusively ruled out simple, steady cooling flow models. We review the history of this subject, the current status of X-ray observations, and some recent models that have been proposed to explain why the core gas does not simply cool and condense.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0308006,
title = {Cool Gas in Clusters of Galaxies},
author = {Megan Donahue and G. Mark Voit},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0308006},
year = {2007}
}