Related papers: Active Galaxies and Cluster Gas
The gas in the cores of many clusters and groups of galaxies has a short radiative cooling time. Energy from the central black hole is observed to flow into this gas by means of jets, bubbles and sound waves. Cooling is thus offset by…
Observations made during the last ten years with the Chandra X-ray Observatory have shed much light on the cooling gas in the centers of clusters of galaxies and the role of active galactic nucleus (AGN) heating. Cooling of the hot…
High resolution X-ray spectroscopy of the hot gas in galaxy clusters has shown that the gas is not cooling to low temperatures at the predicted rates of hundreds to thousands of solar masses per year. X-ray images have revealed giant…
Groups and clusters contain a large fraction of hot gas which emits X-ray radiation. This gas yields information on the dynamical state and on the total mass of these systems. X-ray spectra show that heavy elements are present in the gas.…
Recent data have radically altered the X-ray perspective on cooling flow clusters. X-ray spectra show that very little of the hot intracluster medium is cooler than about 1 keV, despite having short cooling times. In an increasing number of…
Early X-ray observations suggested that the intracluster medium cools and condenses at the centers of clusters, leading to a cooling flow of plasma in the cluster core. The increased incidence of emission-line nebulosity, excess blue light,…
It is well known that the radiative cooling time of the hot X-ray emitting gas in the cores of most clusters of galaxies is less than 10^10 yr. In many clusters the gas temperature also drops towards the centre. If we draw a causal…
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…
Recent observations of the interactions between radio sources and the X-ray-emitting gas in cooling flows in the cores of clusters of galaxies are reviewed. The radio sources inflate bubbles in the X-ray gas, which then rise buoyantly…
It is now generally agreed that some process prevents the diffuse gas in galaxy clusters from cooling significantly, although there is less agreement about the nature of this process. I suggest that cluster gas may be heated by a natural…
The hot, X-ray-emitting intracluster medium (ICM) is the dominant baryonic constituent of clusters of galaxies. In the cores of many clusters, radiative energy losses from the ICM occur on timescales significantly shorter than the age of…
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…
We present a new model for the X-ray properties of the intracluster medium that explicitly includes heating of the gas by the energy released during the evolution of cluster galaxies. We calculate the evolution of clusters by combining the…
The hot plasma permeating clusters of galaxies often shows a central peak in the X-ray surface brightness that is coincident with a drop in entropy. This is taken as evidence for a cooling flow where the radiative cooling in the central…
Expanding X-ray cavities observed in hot gas atmospheres of many galaxy groups and clusters generate shock waves and turbulence that are primary heating mechanisms required to avoid uninhibited radiatively cooling flows which are not…
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…
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…
The gas temperature in the cores of many clusters of galaxies drops inward by about a factor of three or more within the central 100 kpc radius. The radiative cooling time drops over the same region from 5 or more Gyr down to below a few…
The radiative cooling timescales at the centers of hot atmospheres surrounding elliptical galaxies, groups, and clusters are much shorter than their ages. Therefore, hot atmospheres are expected to cool and to form stars. Cold gas and star…
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…