Cooling or Boiling? Cooling Flow Problem and MHD Instabilities in Galaxy Clusters

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

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Scientific paper

In recent years our understanding of the action of thermal conduction in the atmospheres such as the intercluster matter (ICM) is undergoing a revolution. It has been realized that thermal conduction can lead to magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities at all radii in the ICM of clusters and in such way affect the evolution of their thermodynamic properties. I will describe findings based on several global models of cooling core clusters in which we explored the role of heat conduction and heat flux buoyancy instability (HBI) on the evolution of these cores. Our main finding is that a cooling core in the aftermath of HBI cannot be rescued from the cooling catastrophe by thermal conduction alone, although its action can significantly delay the catastrophic core collapse. This is because HBI tends to wrap the lines of magnetic field onto spherical surfaces surrounding the cooling core and in such way greatly suppress further conductive heating along the lines of magnetic field. We speculate that in real clusters, the central AGN and possibly mergers play the role of "stirrers", periodically disrupting the azimuthal field structure and allowing thermal conduction to sporadically heat the core. Support for this project is provided by NASA through Einstein Postdoctoral Fellowship Award PF9-00061 and by the National Science Foundation under grant AST0908212.

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