Related papers: Conduction and cooling flows
We consider the impact of thermal conduction in clusters of galaxies on the (unmagnetized) interface between a cold gaseous cloud and a hotter gas flowing over the cloud (the so-called cold front). We argue that near the stagnation point of…
X-ray observations of hot gas in galaxy clusters often show steeper temperature gradients across cold fronts -- contact discontinuities, driven by the differential gas motions. These sharp (a few kpc wide) surface brightness/temperature…
Despite the substantial progress made recently in understanding the role of AGN feedback and associated non-thermal effects, the precise mechanism that prevents the core of some clusters of galaxies from collapsing catastrophically by…
The radiative cooling time of the hot gas at the centres of cool cores in clusters of galaxies drops down to 10 million years and below. The observed mass cooling rate of such gas is very low, suggesting that AGN feedback is very tightly…
In recent years evidence has accumulated suggesting that the gas in galaxy clusters is heated by non-gravitational processes. Here we calculate the heating rates required to maintain a physically motived mass flow rate, in a sample of seven…
The physics of the coolest phases in the hot Intra-Cluster Medium (ICM) of clusters of galaxies is yet to be fully unveiled. X-ray cavities blown by the central Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) contain enough energy to heat the surrounding gas…
In conventional models of galactic and cluster cooling flows widespread cooling (mass dropout) is assumed to avoid accumulation of unacceptably large central masses. However, recent XMM observations have failed to find spectral evidence for…
We review the X-ray spectra of the cores of clusters of galaxies. Recent high resolution X-ray spectroscopic observations have demonstrated a severe deficit of emission at the lowest X-ray temperatures as compared to that expected from…
It is generally argued that most clusters of galaxies host cooling flows in which radiative cooling in the centre causes a slow inflow. However, recent observations by Chandra and XMM conflict with the predicted cooling flow rates. It has…
We present spatially resolved X-ray spectra taken with the EPIC cameras of XMM-Newton of a sample of 17 cooling clusters and three non-cooling clusters for comparison. The deprojected spectra are analyzed with a multi-temperature model,…
Star formation in the universe's largest galaxies---the ones at the centers of galaxy clusters---depends critically on the thermodynamic state of their hot gaseous atmospheres. Central galaxies with low-entropy, high-density atmospheres…
There are (at least) two unsolved problems concerning the current state of the thermal gas in clusters of galaxies. The first is identifying the source of the heating which offsets cooling in the centers of clusters with short cooling times…
Observations of gravitational lensing indicate that the mass distribution in clusters of galaxies (where most of the mass is dark matter) is highly peaked towards the center, while X-ray observations imply that the gas is more extended. The…
Clusters of galaxies are thought to contain about ten times as much dark matter as baryonic matter. The dark component therefore dominates the gravitational potential of the cluster, and the baryons confined by this potential radiate X-rays…
We discuss hydrostatic models of galaxy clusters in which heat diffusion balances radiative cooling. We consider two different sources of diffusion, thermal conduction and turbulent mixing, parameterized by dimensionless coefficients, f and…
The radiative cooling time of the X-ray-emitting plasma near the center in many clusters of galaxies is shorter than the age of the cluster, but neither the expected large drop in central temperature --nor the expected mass flow towards the…
Feedback from the active galactic nuclei (AGN) is one of the most promising heating mechanisms to circumvent the cooling-flow problem in galaxy clusters. However, the role of thermal conduction remains unclear. Previous studies have shown…
The existence of cooling flows in the center of galaxy clusters has always been a puzzle, and in particular the fate of the cooling gas, since the presence of cold gas has never been proven directly. X-ray data from the satellites Chandra…
Cool core clusters of galaxies require strong feedback from their central AGN to offset cooling. We present a study of strong cool core, highly-luminous (most with L_x > 10^(45) erg/s), clusters of galaxies in which the mean central AGN jet…
We present the results of a Chandra observation of the cooling core cluster Abell 2063. Spectral analysis shows that there is cool gas (2 keV) associated with the cluster core, which is more than a factor of 2 cooler than the outer cluster…