Heating and Acceleration of Intracluster Medium Electrons by Turbulence

Details Heating and Acceleration of Intracluster Medium Electrons by Turbulence Heating and Acceleration of Intracluster Medium Electrons by Turbulence

2008-02-06

arxiv.org/abs/0802.0900v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

28 pages, 7 figures. Astrophysical Journal, in press

Scientific paper

10.1086/588424

In this paper we investigate the feasibility of bremsstrahlung radiation from `nonthermal' electrons as a source of hard X-rays from the intracluster medium of clusters of galaxies. With an exact treatment of the Coulomb collisions in a Fokker-Planck analysis of the electron distribution we find that the severe difficulties with lifetimes of `nonthermal' particles found earlier by Petrosian (2001) using a cold target model remain problematic. We then address possible acceleration of background electrons into a nonthermal tail. We assume a simplified but generic acceleration rate and determine the expected evolution of an initially Maxwellian distribution of electrons. We find that strong nonthermal components arise only for rapid rate of acceleration which also heats up the entire plasma. These results confirm the conclusion that if the observed `nonthermal' excesses are due to some process accelerating the background thermal electrons this process must be short lived.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Heating and Acceleration of Intracluster Medium Electrons by Turbulence 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 Heating and Acceleration of Intracluster Medium Electrons by Turbulence, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Heating and Acceleration of Intracluster Medium Electrons by Turbulence will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-364324