AGN heating and convection in galaxy-cluster plasmas

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Scientific paper

Heating of intracluster plasma is the key to solving the cooling-flow problem and explaining the star-formation histories and intracluster plasma profiles of galaxy clusters. This poster describes a model for AGN heating of galaxy-cluster plasmas that relies upon the turbulent heating associated with convection driven by the buoyancy of centrally produced cosmic rays. The cosmic-ray luminosity is powered by Bondi accretion of intracluster plasma onto a central supermassive black hole. A two-fluid mixing-length theory is developed to treat convection in the thermal-plasma/cosmic-ray fluid. The model equations are solved to obtain equilibrium profiles of the density, temperature, rms turbulent velocity, and cosmic-ray pressure. Although the intracluster medium is convectively unstable near cluster center in the model solutions, the specific entropy of the thermal plasma still increases outwards because of the cosmic-ray modification to the stability criterion. This work was supported by NSF grant AST-0098086 and DOE grants DE-FG02-01ER54658 and DE-FC02-01ER54651 at the University of Iowa.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

AGN heating and convection in galaxy-cluster plasmas does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with AGN heating and convection in galaxy-cluster plasmas, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and AGN heating and convection in galaxy-cluster plasmas will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1644241

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.