The prevalence of cooling flows in early-type galaxies.
Abstract
The density profiles of the hot interstellar gas in 18 galaxies, mostly ellipticals, have been determined using X-ray data from the Einstein Observatory. Radiative cooling is important throughout most of this gas leading to mass-deposition rates of between 0.02 and 3 solar mass/yr. There are problems in determining the nature of the resultant cooling flows since these mass-deposition rates are significantly less than the expected injection of gas from stellar mass loss, and supernova heating is not accounted for. Possible solutions involving a multiphase medium and cooling outflows are suggested. Cooling flows in early-type galaxies have immediate implications for their chemical evolution, optical line emission, star formation, the behavior of cold disks, the activity of the nucleus and the confinement of radio jets.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- October 1986
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/222.4.655
- Bibcode:
- 1986MNRAS.222..655T
- Keywords:
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- Cooling Flows (Astrophysics);
- Density Distribution;
- Elliptical Galaxies;
- Galactic Evolution;
- High Temperature Gases;
- Interstellar Gas;
- Radiant Cooling;
- Emission Spectra;
- Line Spectra;
- Star Formation;
- Visible Spectrum;
- Astrophysics