X-ray Diagnostics of Clusters of Galaxies with ASTRO-H
Abstract
Under the extensive international collaboration, ASTRO-H, scheduled for launch in 2015, is in the course of its integration and intensive testing. This 6th Japanese X-ray satellite is expected to innovate our knowledge of the Intra Cluster Medium (ICM) in clusters of galaxies. The X-ray emission from the ICM will be mapped to peripheral regions with the Soft X-ray Imager, placed at the focal plane of with the Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT). The Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS), with its superb energy resolution, will allow us for the first time to examine the atomic emission lines for thermal broadening, as well as Doppler effects due to turbulence and bulk motion. Combination of the Hard X-ray Telescope (HXT) and the Hard X-ray Imager (HXI) can be used to probe very hot thermal component and non-thermal emission, the latter being augmented by the Soft Gamma-Ray Detector (SGD). Using these instruments altogether, we are hoping to strengthen our new discovery (Gu et al. 2013), that member galaxies have been falling to the cluster centers, probably because of their strong interaction with the ICM. The in-falling galaxies are expected to drag the local ICM, cause plasma turbulence therein, provide the ICM with excess entropy via, e.g., magnetic reconnection, and accelerate particles. Back reactions from the ICM may provide the long-sought origin of the environmental effects working on galaxies.
- Publication:
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40th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014cosp...40E1954M