We present new ultraviolet, optical, and X-ray data on the Phoenix galaxy cluster (SPT-CLJ2344-4243). Deep optical imaging reveals previously undetected filaments of star formation, extending to ...radii of ∼50–100 kpc in multiple directions. Combined UV-optical spectroscopy of the central galaxy reveals a massive (2 × 10{sup 9} M{sub ⊙}), young (∼4.5 Myr) population of stars, consistent with a time-averaged star formation rate of 610 ± 50 M{sub ⊙} yr{sup −1}. We report a strong detection of O vi λλ1032,1038, which appears to originate primarily in shock-heated gas, but may contain a substantial contribution (>1000 M{sub ⊙} yr{sup −1}) from the cooling intracluster medium (ICM). We confirm the presence of deep X-ray cavities in the inner ∼10 kpc, which are among the most extreme examples of radio-mode feedback detected to date, implying jet powers of 2–7 × 10{sup 45} erg s{sup −1}. We provide evidence that the active galactic nucleus inflating these cavities may have only recently transitioned from “quasar-mode” to “radio-mode,” and may currently be insufficient to completely offset cooling. A model-subtracted residual X-ray image reveals evidence for prior episodes of strong radio-mode feedback at radii of ∼100 kpc, with extended “ghost” cavities indicating a prior epoch of feedback roughly 100 Myr ago. This residual image also exhibits significant asymmetry in the inner ∼200 kpc (0.15R{sub 500}), reminiscent of infalling cool clouds, either due to minor mergers or fragmentation of the cooling ICM. Taken together, these data reveal a rapidly evolving cool core which is rich with structure (both spatially and in temperature), is subject to a variety of highly energetic processes, and yet is cooling rapidly and forming stars along thin, narrow filaments.
Here, we present new ultraviolet, optical, and X-ray data on the Phoenix galaxy cluster (SPT-CLJ2344-4243). Deep optical imaging reveals previously undetected filaments of star formation, extending ...to radii of ~50-100 kpc in multiple directions. Combined UV-optical spectroscopy of the central galaxy reveals a massive (2 x 109 M⊙), young (~4.5 Myr) population of stars, consistent with a time-averaged star formation rate of 610 ± 50 M⊙ yr–1. We report a strong detection of O VI λλ1032,1038, which appears to originate primarily in shock-heated gas, but may contain a substantial contribution (>1000 M⊙ yr–1 from the cooling intracluster medium (ICM). We confirm the presence of deep X-ray cavities in the inner similar to 10 kpc, which are among the most extreme examples of radio-mode feedback detected to date, implying jet powers of 2-7 x 1045 erg s–1. We provide evidence that the active galactic nucleus inflating these cavities may have only recently transitioned from "quasar-mode" to "radio-mode," and may currently be insufficient to completely offset cooling. A model-subtracted residual X-ray image reveals evidence for prior episodes of strong radio-mode feedback at radii of similar to 100 kpc, with extended "ghost" cavities indicating a prior epoch of feedback roughly 100 Myr ago. This residual image also exhibits significant asymmetry in the inner ~200 kpc (0.15R500), reminiscent of infalling cool clouds, either due to minor mergers or fragmentation of the cooling ICM. Taken together, these data reveal a rapidly evolving cool core which is rich with structure (both spatially and in temperature), is subject to a variety of highly energetic processes, and yet is cooling rapidly and forming stars along thin, narrow filaments.
We present a multiwavelength study of the massive galaxy cluster Abell 1763 at redshift z = 0.231. Image analysis of a 19.6 ks Chandra archival observation reveals a cluster-wide spiral of enhanced ...surface brightness in the intracluster medium (ICM). While such spirals are understood to form in clusters with sloshing strong cool cores (SCCs), the gas comprising the spiral's apex is of intermediate entropy (\(\sim\) 110 keV cm\(^{2}\)) and cooling time (\(\sim\) 6.8 Gyr), indicating core disruption is occurring throughout the spiral formation process. Two subclusters dominated by the second- and third-ranked galaxies in the system lie along a line parallel to the elongation axis of the primary cluster's ICM. Both subsystems appear to have fallen in along a previously discovered intercluster filament and are each considered candidates as the perturber responsible for initiating disruptive core sloshing. Dynamical analysis indicates infall is occurring with a relative radial velocity of \(\sim\) 1800 km s\(^{-1}\). The brightest cluster galaxy of Abell 1763 possesses a high line-of-sight peculiar velocity (v\(_{pec}\) \(\sim\) 650 km s\(^{-1}\)) and hosts a powerful (P\(_{1.4}\) \(\sim\) 10\(^{26}\) W Hz\(^{-1}\)) bent double-lobed radio source, likely shaped by the relative bulk ICM flow induced in the merger. The cluster merger model of SCC destruction invokes low impact parameter infall as the condition required for core transformation. In contrast to this, the high angular momentum event occurring in Abell 1763 suggests that off-axis mergers play a greater role in establishing the non-cool core cluster population than previously assumed.
X-ray observations of many clusters of galaxies reveal the presence of edges in surface brightness and temperature, known as "cold fronts". In relaxed clusters with cool cores, these edges have been ...interpreted as evidence for the "sloshing" of the core gas in the cluster's gravitational potential. The smoothness of these edges has been interpreted as evidence for the stabilizing effect of magnetic fields "draped" around the front surfaces. To check this hypothesis, we perform high-resolution magnetohydrodynamics simulations of magnetized gas sloshing in galaxy clusters initiated by encounters with subclusters. We go beyond previous works on the simulation of cold fronts in a magnetized intracluster medium by simulating their formation in realistic, idealized mergers with high resolution ({\Delta}x ~ 2 kpc). Our simulations sample a parameter space of plausible initial magnetic field strengths and field configurations. In the simulations, we observe strong velocity shears associated with the cold fronts amplifying the magnetic field along the cold front surfaces, increasing the magnetic field strength in these layers by up to an order of magnitude, and boosting the magnetic pressure up to near-equipartition with thermal pressure in some cases. In these layers, the magnetic field becomes strong enough to stabilize the cold fronts against Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities, resulting in sharp, smooth fronts as those seen in observations of real clusters. These magnetic fields also result in strong suppression of mixing of high and low-entropy gas in the cluster, seen in our simulations of mergers in the absence of a magnetic field. As a result, the heating of the core due to sloshing is very modest and is unable to stave off a cooling catastrophe.
We present a simplified and fast method for simulating minor mergers between galaxy clusters. Instead of following the evolution of the dark matter halos directly by the N-body method, we employ a ...rigid potential approximation for both clusters. The simulations are run in the rest frame of the more massive cluster and account for the resulting inertial accelerations in an optimised way. We test the reliability of this method for studies of minor merger induced gas sloshing by performing a one-to-one comparison between our simulations and hydro+N-body ones. We find that the rigid potential approximation reproduces the sloshing-related features well except for two artefacts: the temperature just outside the cold fronts is slightly over-predicted, and the outward motion of the cold fronts is delayed by typically 200 Myr. We discuss reasons for both artefacts.
Cold fronts -- contact discontinuities in the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters -- should be disrupted by Kelvin-Helmholtz (K-H) instabilities due to the associated shear velocity. ...However, many observed cold fronts appear stable. This opens the possibility to place constraints on microphysical mechanisms that stabilize them, such as the ICM viscosity and/or magnetic fields. We performed exploratory high-resolution simulations of cold fronts arising from subsonic gas sloshing in cluster cores using the grid-based Athena MHD code, comparing the effects of isotropic Spitzer and anisotropic Braginskii viscosity (expected in a magnetized plasma). Magnetized simulations with full Braginskii viscosity or isotropic Spitzer viscosity reduced by a factor f ~ 0.1 are both in qualitative agreement with observations in terms of suppressing K-H instabilities. The RMS velocity of turbulence within the sloshing region is only modestly reduced by Braginskii viscosity. We also performed unmagnetized simulations with and without viscosity and find that magnetic fields have a substantial effect on the appearance of the cold fronts, even if the initial field is weak and the viscosity is the same. This suggests that determining the dominant suppression mechanism of a given cold front from X-ray observations (e.g. viscosity or magnetic fields) by comparison with simulations is not straightforward. Finally, we performed simulations including anisotropic thermal conduction, and find that including Braginskii viscosity in these simulations does not significant affect the evolution of cold fronts; they are rapidly smeared out by thermal conduction, as in the inviscid case.
We present the results of a very deep (500 ks) Chandra observation, along with tailored numerical simulations, of the nearest, best resolved cluster cold front in the sky, which lies 90 kpc (19 ...arcmin) to the north-west of M 87. The northern part of the front appears the sharpest, with a width smaller than 2.5 kpc (1.5 Coulomb mean free paths; at 99 per cent confidence). Everywhere along the front, the temperature discontinuity is narrower than 4-8 kpc and the metallicity gradient is narrower than 6 kpc, indicating that diffusion, conduction and mixing are suppressed across the interface. Such transport processes can be naturally suppressed by magnetic fields aligned with the cold front. Interestingly, comparison to magnetohydrodynamic simulations indicates that in order to maintain the observed sharp density and temperature discontinuities, conduction must also be suppressed along the magnetic field lines. However, the northwestern part of the cold front is observed to have a non-zero width. While other explanations are possible, the broadening is consistent with the presence of Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities (KHI) on length-scales of a few kpc. Based on comparison with simulations, the presence of KHI would imply that the effective viscosity of the intracluster medium is suppressed by more than an order of magnitude with respect to the isotropic Spitzer-like temperature dependent viscosity. Underneath the cold front, we observe quasi-linear features that are ~10 per cent brighter than the surrounding gas and are separated by ~15 kpc from each other in projection. Comparison to tailored numerical simulations suggests that the observed phenomena may be due to the amplification of magnetic fields by gas sloshing in wide layers below the cold front, where the magnetic pressure reaches ~5-10 per cent of the thermal pressure, reducing the gas density between the bright features.
(Abridged) Cold fronts in cluster cool cores should be erased on short timescales by thermal conduction, unless protected by magnetic fields that are "draped" parallel to the front surfaces, ...suppressing conduction perpendicular to the fronts. We present MHD simulations of cold front formation in the core of a galaxy cluster with anisotropic thermal conduction, exploring a parameter space of conduction strengths parallel and perpendicular to the field lines. Including conduction has a strong effect on the temperature of the core and the cold fronts. Though magnetic field lines are draping parallel to the front surfaces, the temperature jumps across the fronts are nevertheless reduced. The field geometry is such that the cold gas below the front surfaces can be connected to hotter regions outside via field lines along directions perpendicular to the plane of the sloshing motions and along sections of the front which are not perfectly draped. This results in the heating of this gas below the front on a timescale of a Gyr, but the sharpness of the density and temperature jumps may still be preserved. By modifying the density distribution below the front, conduction may indirectly aid in suppressing Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities. If conduction along the field lines is unsuppressed, we find that the characteristic sharp jumps in X-ray emission seen in observations of clusters do not form. This suggests that the presence of sharp cold fronts in hot clusters could be used to place upper limits on conduction in the {\it bulk} of the ICM. Finally, the combination of sloshing and anisotropic thermal conduction can result in a larger flux of heat to the core than either process in isolation. While still not sufficient to prevent a cooling catastrophe in the very central (\(r \sim\) 5 kpc) regions of the cool core, it reduces significantly the mass of cool gas that accumulates outside those radii.
We present a detailed analysis of the velocity structure of the hot intracluster medium (ICM) within the A3266 galaxy cluster, including new observations taken between June and November 2023. ...Firstly, morphological structures within the galaxy cluster were examined using a Gaussian Gradient Magnitude (GGM) and adaptively smoothed GGM filter applied to the EPIC-pn X-ray image. Then, we applied a novel {\it XMM-Newton} EPIC-pn energy scale calibration, which uses instrumental Cu K\(\alpha\) as reference for the line emission, to measure line-of-sight velocities of the hot gas within the system. This approach enabled us to create two-dimensional projected maps for velocity, temperature, and metallicity, showing that the hot gas displays a redshifted systemic velocity relative to the cluster redshift across all fields of view. Further analysis of the velocity distribution through non-overlapping circular regions demonstrated consistent redshifted velocities extending up to 1125 kpc from the cluster core. Additionally, the velocity distribution was assessed along regions following surface brightness discontinuities, where we observed redshifted velocities in all regions, with the largest velocities reaching \(768 \pm 284\) km/s. Moreover, we computed the velocity Probability Density Function (PDF) from the velocity map. We applied a normality test, finding that the PDF adheres to an unimodal normal distribution consistent with theoretical predictions. Lastly, we computed a velocity structure function (VSF) for this system using the measured line-of-sight velocities. These insights advance our understanding of the dynamic processes within the A3266 galaxy cluster and contribute to our broader knowledge of ICM behavior in merging galaxy clusters.
Though feedback from central active galactic nuclei provides an attractive solution to the problem of overcooling in galaxy cluster cores, another possible source of heating may come from ...``sloshing'' of the cluster core gas initiated by mergers. We present a set of simulations of galaxy cluster mergers with subclusters in order to determine the amount of heating provided by the mechanism of sloshing, exploring a parameter space over mass ratio, impact parameter, and viscosity of the intracluster medium (ICM). Our results show that for sloshing caused by mergers with gasless subclusters cooling may be partially offset by heating from sloshing, but this mechanism is less effective if the ICM is viscous.
