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Register a new userMagnetic turbulence in cool cores of galaxy clusters
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We argue that the recently reported Kolmogorov-like magnetic turbulence spectrum in the cool core of the Hydra A galaxy cluster can be understood by kinetic energy injection by active galaxies that drives a turbulent non-helical magnetic dynamo into its saturated state. Although dramatic differences exist between small-scale dynamo scenarios, their saturated state is expected to be similar, as we show for three scenarios: the flux rope dynamo, the fluctuation dynamo, and the explosive dynamo. Based on those scenarios, we develop an analytical model of the hydrodynamic and magnetic turbulence in cool cores. The model implies magnetic field strengths that fit well with Faraday rotation measurements and minimum energy estimates for the sample of cool core clusters having such data available. Predictions for magnetic fields in clusters for which the appropriate observational information is still missing, and for yet unobserved quantities like the hydrodynamical turbulence velocity and characteristic length-scale are provided. The underlying dynamo models suggest magnetic intermittency and possibly a large-scale hydrodynamic viscosity. We conclude that the success of the model to explain the field strength in cool core clusters indicates that in general cluster magnetic fields directly reflect hydrodynamical turbulence, also in clusters without cool cores.
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Clusters of galaxies are embedded in halos of optically thin, gravitationally stratified, weakly magnetized plasma at the systems virial temperature. Due to radiative cooling and anisotropic heat conduction, such intracluster medium (ICM) is subject to local instabilities, which are combinations of the thermal, magnetothermal and heat-flux-driven buoyancy instabilities. If the ICM rotates significantly, its stability properties are substantially modified and, in particular, also the magnetorotational instability (MRI) can play an important role. We study simple models of rotating cool-core clusters and we demonstrate that the MRI can be the dominant instability over significant portions of the clusters, with possible implications for the dynamics and evolution of the cool cores. Our results give further motivation for measuring the rotation of the ICM with future X-ray missions such as ASTRO-H and ATHENA.
Recent cosmological simulations have shown that turbulence should be generally prevailing in clusters because clusters are continuously growing through matter accretion. Using one-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations, we study the heating of cool-core clusters by the ubiquitous turbulence as well as feedback from the central active galactic nuclei (AGNs) for a wide range of cluster and turbulence parameters, focusing on the global stability of the core. We find that the AGN shows intermittent activities in the presence of moderate turbulence similar to the one observed with Hitomi. The cluster core maintains a quasi-equilibrium state for most of the time because the heating through turbulent diffusion is nearly balanced with radiative cooling. The balance is gradually lost because of slight dominance of the radiative cooling, and the AGN is ignited by increased gas inflow. Finally, when the AGN bursts, the core is heated almost instantaneously. Thanks to the pre-existing turbulence, the heated gas is distributed throughout the core without becoming globally unstable and causing catastrophic cooling, and the core recovers the quasi-equilibrium state. The AGN bursts can be stronger in lower-mass clusters. Predictions of our model can be easily checked with future X-ray missions like XRISM and Athena.
We use XMM-Newton data to carry out a detailed study of the Si, Fe and Ni abundances in the cool cores of a representative sample of 26 local clusters. We have performed a careful evaluation of the systematic uncertainties related to the instruments, the plasma codes and the spectral modeling finding that the major source of uncertainty is in the plasma codes. Our Si, Fe, Ni, Si/Fe and Ni/Fe distributions feature only moderate spreads (from 20% to 30%) around their mean values strongly suggesting similar enrichment processes at work in all our cluster cores. Our sample averaged Si/Fe ratio is comparable to those measured in samples of groups and high luminosity ellipticals implying that the enrichment process in ellipticals, dominant galaxies in groups and BCGs in clusters is quite similar. Although our Si/Fe and Ni/Fe abundance ratios are fairly well constrained, the large uncertainties in the supernovae yields prevent us from making a firm assessment of the relative contribution of type Ia and core-collapsed supernovae to the enrichment process. All that can really be said with some certainty is that both contribute to the enrichment of cluster cores.
We present a systematic study of gas density perturbations in cool cores of high-mass galaxy clusters. We select 12 relaxed clusters from the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) sample and analyze their cool core features observed with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. We focus on the X-ray residual image characteristics after subtracting their global profile of the X-ray surface brightness distribution. We find that all the galaxy clusters in our sample have, at least, both one positive and one negative excess regions in the X-ray residual image, indicating the presence of gas density perturbations. We identify and characterize the locally perturbed regions using our detection algorithm, and extract X-ray spectra of the intracluster medium (ICM). The ICM temperature in the positive excess region is lower than that in the negative excess region, whereas the ICM in both regions is in pressure equilibrium in a systematic manner. These results indicate that gas sloshing in cool cores takes place in more than 80% of relaxed clusters (95% CL). We confirm this physical picture by analyzing synthetic X-ray observations of a cool-core cluster from a hydrodynamic simulation, finding that our detection algorithm can accurately extract both the positive and negative excess regions and can reproduce the temperature difference between them. Our findings support the picture that the gas density perturbations are induced by gas sloshing, and a large fraction of cool-core clusters have undergone gas sloshing, indicating that gas sloshing may be capable of suppressing runaway cooling of the ICM.
Cool cores of some galaxy clusters exhibit faint radio minihalos. Their origin is unclear; their study has been limited by their small number. We undertook a systematic search for minihalos in a large sample of X-ray luminous clusters with high-quality radio data. In this paper, we report four new minihalos (A 478, ZwCl 3146, RXJ 1532.9+3021 and A 2204), and five candidates, found in the reanalyzed archival Very Large Array observations. The radio luminosities of our minihalos and candidates are in the range $10^{23-25}$ W Hz$^{-1}$ at 1.4 GHz, consistent with this type of radio sources. Their sizes (40-160 kpc in radius) are somewhat smaller than those of the previously known minihalos. We combine our new detections with previously known minihalos, obtaining a total sample of 21 objects, and briefly compare the cluster radio properties to the average X-ray temperature and the total masses estimated from Planck. We find that nearly all clusters hosting minihalos are hot and massive. Beyond that, there is no clear correlation between the minihalo radio power and cluster temperature or mass (in contrast with the giant radio halos found in cluster mergers, whose radio luminosity correlates with the cluster mass). Chandra X-ray images indicate gas sloshing in the cool cores of most of our clusters, with minihalos contained within the sloshing regions in many of them. This supports the hypothesis that radio-emitting electrons are reaccelerated by sloshing. Advection of relativistic electrons by the sloshing gas may also play a role in the formation of the less-extended minihalos.
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