English

Long Term Evolution of Magnetized Bubbles in Galaxy Clusters

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v2

Abstract

We have performed nonlinear ideal magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the long term evolution of a magnetized low-density "bubble" plasma formed by a radio galaxy in a stratified cluster medium. It is found that about 3.5% of the initial magnetic energy remains in the bubble after 8×109\sim 8 \times 10^{9} years, and the initial magnetic bubble expansion is adiabatic. The bubble can survive for at least 8×1098 \times 10^9 years due to the stabilizing effect of the bubble magnetic field on Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Holmholtz instabilities, possibly accounting for "ghost cavities" as observed in Perseus-A\@. A filament structure spanning about 500 kpc is formed along the path of bubble motion. The mean value of the magnetic field inside this structure is 0.88\sim 0.88 μ\muG at 8×109\sim8\times10^9 years. Finally, the initial bubble momentum and rotation have limited influence on the long term evolution of the bubble.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0806.3717,
  title  = {Long Term Evolution of Magnetized Bubbles in Galaxy Clusters},
  author = {Wei Liu and Hui Li and Shengtai Li and Scott C. Hsu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0806.3717},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

11 pages, 5 figures, accepted by ApJL. Minor changes according to the referee's report

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