Related papers: Plasma 2020 - Intracluster Medium Plasmas
We present self-consistent cosmological magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations that simultaneously follow the formation of a galaxy cluster and the magnetic field ejection by an active galactic nucleus (AGN). We find that the magnetic fields…
The hot intracluster medium (ICM) provides a unique laboratory to test multi-scale physics in numerical simulations and probe plasma physics. Utilizing archival Chandra observations, we measure density fluctuations in the ICM in a sample of…
The metal content of clusters of galaxies and its relation to their stellar content is revisited making use of a cluster sample for which all four basic parameters are homogeneously measured within consistent radii, namely core-excised…
Only ~10% of baryons in the universe are in the form of stars, yet most models of luminous structure formation have concentrated on the properties of the luminous stellar matter. In this paper we focus on the "flip side" of galaxy formation…
We point out that two problems of observational cosmology, the facts i) that > 60% of the baryonic content of the universe is not observed at z=0 and ii) that the properties of small clusters do not agree with simple expectations, could be…
Intergalactic space is filled with a pervasive medium of ionized gas, the Intergalactic Medium (IGM). A residual neutral fraction is detected in the spectra of Quasi-Stellar Objects at both low and high redshifts, revealing a highly…
As the most massive nodes of the cosmic web, galaxy clusters represent the best probes of structure formation. Over time, they grow by accreting and disrupting satellite galaxies, adding those stars to the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) and…
Heavy particles in galaxy clusters tend to be more centrally concentrated than light ones according to the Boltzmann distribution. An estimate of the drift velocity suggests that it is possible that the helium nuclei may have entirely or…
X-ray observations of galaxy clusters potentially provide powerful cosmological probes if systematics due to our incomplete knowledge of the intracluster medium (ICM) physics are understood and controlled. In this paper, we present mock…
[Abridged] Galaxy clusters are the most massive gravitationally-bound systems in the universe and are widely considered to be an effective cosmological probe. We propose the first Machine Learning method using galaxy cluster properties to…
Giant clumps on ~kpc scales and with masses of 10^8-10^9 Msol are ubiquitous in observed high-redshift disc galaxies. Recent simulations and observations with high spatial resolution indicate the existence of substructure within these…
The physical properties of the faint and extremely tenuous plasma in the far outskirts of galaxy clusters, the circumgalactic media of normal galaxies, and filaments of the cosmic web, remain one of the biggest unknowns in our story of…
The use of galaxy clusters as cosmological probes often relies on understanding the properties and evolution of the intracluster medium (ICM). However, the ICM is a complex plasma, regularly stirred by mergers and feedback, with…
X-ray observations of galaxy clusters have shown that the intra-cluster gas has iron abundances of about one third of the solar value. These observations also show that part (if not all) of the intra-cluster gas metals were produced within…
A key process within astronomy is the exchange of mass, momentum, and energy between diffuse plasmas in many types of astronomical sources (including planetary nebulae, wind-blown bubbles, supernova remnants, starburst superwinds, and the…
Cosmological simulations of structure formation predict that galaxies are dramatically modified by galaxy harassment during the assembly of galaxy clusters, losing a substantial fraction of their stellar mass which today must be in the form…
All stars are born in molecular clouds, and most in giant molecular clouds (GMCs), which thus set the star formation activity of galaxies. We first review their observed properties, including measures of mass surface density, Sigma, and…
Clusters of galaxies are studied from a theoretical point of view, comparing with observational results whenever possible. The problem is approached both analytically as well as by means of high-resoultion numerical simulations. The dark…
This white paper, submitted for the Plasma 2020 Decadal Survey, concerns the physics of weakly collisional, high-beta plasmas -- plasmas in which the thermal pressure dominates over the magnetic pressure and in which the inter-particle…
The spatial clustering of galaxies in galaxy clusters implies that the background of infrared (IR) light in the intracluster medium (ICM) may exceed the universal background. Cosmic rays injected within the ICM propagate diffusively and at…