Related papers: A study of diffusive shock acceleration as a proce…
Past observations and simulations predict an increasingly inhomogeneous gas distribution towards the outskirts of galaxy clusters, but the exact properties of such gas clumping are not yet well known. The outskirts of Abell 133 benefit from…
Cluster of galaxies are the largest concentrations of visible mass in the Universe and therefore a fundamental topic of cosmology and astrophysics. Recent radio, EUV, and X-ray observations suggest that clusters contain large populations of…
Major mergers between galaxy clusters can produce large turbulent and bulk flow velocities in the intra-cluster medium and thus imprint diagnostic features in X-ray spectral emission lines from heavy ions. As demonstrated by Hitomi in…
We analyze the mass content of the massive strong-lensing cluster Abell 586 ($z = 0.17$). We use optical data (imaging and spectroscopy) obtained with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) mounted on the 8-m Gemini-North telescope,…
We investigate the properties of a clump-cluster galaxy at redshift 1.57. The morphology of this galaxy is dominated by eight star-forming clumps in optical observations, and has photometric properties typical of most clump-cluster and…
X-ray shocks and radio relics detected in the cluster outskirts are commonly interpreted as shocks induced by mergers of sub-clumps. We study the properties of merger shocks in merging galaxy clusters, using a set of cosmological…
We study the total gravitating mass distribution in the central region of 23 clusters of galaxies with Chandra. Using a new deprojection technique, we measure the temperature and gas density in the very central region of the clusters as a…
Analyses of Chandra's first images of cooling flow clusters find smaller cooling rates than previously thought. Cooling may be occurring preferentially near regions of star formation in central cluster galaxies, where the local cooling and…
We investigate binary mergers of galaxy clusters, the formation of shocks, and the resulting radio relics using three-dimensional simulations. The initial setup consists of two idealized spherical subclusters with a mass ratio below three,…
Recent observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory have provided us with the capability to discriminate point sources, such as the supermassive black hole Sgr A*, from the diffuse emission within the inner 10'' of the Galaxy. The hot…
The structure of the universe is believed to have formed by clustering hierarchically from small to large scales. Much of this evolution occurs very slowly but at a few special times more, rapid, violent activity may occur as major subunits…
In the outskirts of galaxy clusters, entropy profiles measured from X-ray observations of the hot intracluster medium (ICM) drops off unexpectedly. One possible explanation for this effect is gas clumping, where pockets of cooler and denser…
The non-thermal particle spectra responsible for the emission from many astrophysical systems are thought to originate from shocks via a first order Fermi process otherwise known as diffusive shock acceleration. The same mechanism is also…
Cooling flows, cluster mergers and motions of galaxies through the cluster gas with supersonic and sonic velocities must lead to large scale motions of the intracluster medium (ICM). A high-resolution numerical simulation of X-ray cluster…
The theory of Non-Linear Diffusive Shock Acceleration (NLDSA) predicts the formation of a precursor upstream of the shock, where accelerated particles diffuse and induce magnetic field amplification through streaming instability. The non…
The process of galaxy cluster formation likely leaves an imprint on the properties of its individual member galaxies. Understanding this process is essential for uncovering the evolutionary connections between galaxies and cosmic…
We present Chandra X-ray observations of the dynamically complex galaxy cluster Abell 119 ($z = 0.044$). A119 is host to two NAT radio sources (0053-015 & 0053-016) whose tails are oriented parallel to each other despite orthogonally…
Galaxy cluster mass distributions offer an important test of the cold dark matter picture of structure formation, and may even contain clues about the nature of dark matter. X-ray imaging spectroscopy of relaxed systems can map cluster dark…
Gamma-ray astronomy will play a crucial role in the investigation of nonthermal processes in the large scale structure of the universe. Particularly, galaxy clusters (GC) observations at this photon energy will help us understand the origin…
We have implemented an Adaptive Mesh Refinement criterion explicitly designed to increase spatial resolution around discontinuities in the velocity field in ENZO cosmological simulations. With this technique, shocks and turbulent eddies…