Conveners
Tuesday morning: Turbulence
- Prateek Sharma (IISc Bangalore)
I will discuss recent theoretical work related to the impact of magnetic fields and gravitational stratification in the hot halos of massive galaxies and clusters. Specifically, I will demonstrate that even extremely weak magnetic fields can dramatically alter the feeding the supermassive black holes and the dynamics of cold gas precipitating out of the circumgalactic (CGM) and intracluster...
The intra-cluster medium (ICM) in the centers of galaxy clusters is heavily influenced by the ``feedback’’ from supermassive black holes (SMBHs) jets, which prevents a catastrophic cooling and suppresses star formation. However, exactly how jets influence the surrounding ICM is unclear. Due to the limited spatial and spectral resolutions of X-ray telescopes, it has been rather challenging to...
The study of jet-inflated X-ray cavities in early-type galaxies provides a powerful insight into the energetics of galactic atmospheres and the AGN feedback phenomenon. Properly estimating their total extent is, however, non-trivial, prone to biases and nearly impossible for poor-quality data. We present a novel and automized method developed for producing unbiased size estimates of X-ray...
Cold gas is ubiquitously found in the circumgalactic and intracluster medium (CGM/ICM). Clouds can form and be accelerated in the expanding winds generated by galactic outflows. I present our recent work where we study the growth and survival of cold, dense structures/clumps in these environments. We have designed a cloud crushing setup that accounts for the movement of the dense cloud in a...
The bulk motion of ICM determines the morphology of AGN jet tails in galaxy clusters. In this study, we use idealized simulations to understand the formation process of the 800 kpc-size bent AGN radio jet tail that we recently discovered in the merging cluster Abell 514. By comparing the observed X-ray morphology with simulations, we constrain the merger history of Abell 514 as a ~2:1 mass...
In the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxies, exchanges of heat across magnetic field lines are strongly suppressed. This anisotropic heat conduction, in the presence of a large-scale temperature gradient, destabilizes the outskirts of galaxy clusters via the magneto-thermal instability (MTI), and thus supplies a source of observed ICM turbulence. Our aim is to take a fresh look at the problem...
Magnetized turbulence is ubiquitous in many astrophysical and terrestrial plasmas but no universal
theory exists. Even the detailed energy dynamics in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence are still not
well understood. We present a suite of ICM-like, subsonic, super-Alfvénic, high plasma-beta MHD turbulence
simulation that only vary in their dynamical range, i.e., in their separation between the...
X-ray spectral analysis is a powerful tool available to astronomers to study differing astrophysical phenomena from X-ray binaries, galactic black holes, and the intracluster medium.
A new Bayesian paradigm is emerging in the field of X-ray spectral analysis. However, continued concerns over the choice of priors dominate the conversation. With our new machine learning methodology employing...
We present the results of Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray imaging and spatially-resolved spectroscopy of the filament in MACSJ0717.5+3745, an intermediate redshift (z=0.5458) and exceptionally massive (3.5 +/- 0.6 * 10^15 solar masses) Frontier Fields cluster experiencing multiple mergers. Tight constraints placed on the thermodynamical properties of the filament are acquired using a joint...
