Related papers: Nonlinear Simulations of the Heat Flux Driven Buoy…
In the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters, heat and momentum are transported almost entirely along (but not across) magnetic field lines. We perform the first fully self-consistent Braginskii-MHD simulations of galaxy clusters…
The nonlinear magnetic Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHi), and the turbulence it creates, appears in many astrophysical systems. This includes those systems where the local plasma conditions are such that the plasma is not fully ionised,…
We study the effects of externally imposed turbulence on the thermal properties of galaxy cluster cores, using three-dimensional numerical simulations including magnetic fields, anisotropic thermal conduction, and radiative cooling. The…
Recent Chandra observations of clusters of galaxies revealed the existence of a sharp ridge in the X-ray surface brightness where the temperature drops across the front. This front is called the cold front. We present the results of…
In weakly-collisional plasmas such as the intracluster medium (ICM), heat and momentum transport become anisotropic with respect to the local magnetic field direction. Anisotropic heat conduction causes the slow magnetosonic wave to become…
(abridged) Uninhibited radiative cooling in clusters of galaxies would lead to excessive mass accretion rates contrary to observations. One of the key proposals to offset radiative energy losses is thermal conduction from outer, hotter…
Centres of galaxy clusters must be efficiently reheated to avoid a cooling catastrophe. One potential reheating mechanism is anisotropic thermal conduction, which could transport thermal energy from intermediate radii to the cluster center.…
A heat flux in a high-$\beta$ plasma with low collisionality triggers the whistler instability. Quasilinear theory predicts saturation of the instability in a marginal state characterized by a heat flux that is fully controlled by electron…
We study the interplay among cooling, heating, conduction, and magnetic fields in gravitationally stratified plasmas using simplified, plane-parallel numerical simulations. Since the physical heating mechanism remains uncertain in massive…
The dynamics of weakly magnetized collisionless plasmas in the presence of an imposed temperature gradient along an ambient magnetic field is explored with particle-in-cell simulations and modeling. Two thermal reservoirs at different…
The assumption of a spatially uniform helium distribution in the intracluster medium can lead to biases in the estimates of key cluster parameters if composition gradients are present. The helium concentration profile in galaxy clusters is…
In the hot intracluster medium (ICM) in galaxy clusters, plasma microinstabilities may play an important role in the transport of heat and momentum on the large scales. In this paper, we continue our investigation of the effect of whistler…
We use three-dimensional MHD simulations with anisotropic thermal conduction to study turbulence due to the magnetothermal instability (MTI) in the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters. The MTI grows on timescales of ~1 Gyr and is…
In the coldest regions of the solar atmosphere, lingering discrepancies between models and observations may be caused by the Thermal Farley-Buneman Instability (TFBI). This meter-scale, electrostatic, collisional, multifluid plasma…
Galaxy clusters are filled with hot, diffuse X-ray emitting plasma, with a stochastically tangled magnetic field whose energy is close to equipartition with the energy of the turbulent motions \cite{zweibel1997, Vacca}. In the cluster…
We consider the problem of self-regulated heating and cooling in galaxy clusters and the implications for cluster magnetic fields and turbulence. Viscous heating of a weakly collisional magnetised plasma is regulated by the pressure…
Both global dynamics and turbulence in magnetized weakly collisional cosmic plasmas are described by general magnetofluid equations that contain pressure anisotropies and heat fluxes that must be calculated from microscopic plasma kinetic…
We have shown that there exists low-frequency growing modes driven by a global temperature gradient in electron and ion plasmas, by linear perturbation analysis within the frame work of plasma Kinetic theory. The driving force of the…
In the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxies, exchanges of heat across magnetic field lines are strongly suppressed. This anisotropic heat conduction, in the presence of a large-scale temperature gradient, destabilizes the outskirts of…
We estimate the thermal conductivity of a weakly collisional magnetized plasma with chaotic magnetic field fluctuations. When the fluctuation spectrum extends over two or more decades in wave-vector, we find that thermal conduction is very…