Evolution of shocks and turbulence in major galaxy-cluster mergers

Mergers between rich clusters of galaxies represent the most violent events in the Universe. The merger events initiate a complex chain of processes that leads to the dissipation of the collisional energy. This phase of violent relaxation is accompanied by turbulence and shock waves as well as nonthermal particle acceleration. This thesis aims at the interpretation of multi-wavelength observations of the merging cluster of galaxies Abell 3376 in the framework of a theoretical model of the involved effects. Observations with the Very Large Array radio interferometer were carried out and analyzed to clarify the morphology of the nonthermal particle distribution in Abell 3376, in particular about the shocked regions. The dissipation in the hot intracluster gas was studied using archival X-ray observations with ROSAT and XMM. Results were compared with constrained numerical simulations of the evolution of the merger process in the framework of cosmological structure formation. For this purpose, the ENZO-Code was employed for the computation of the gas dynamics and self-gravity of the colliding mass distribution. The nonthermal properties of the intracluster gas could be indirectly inferred from the local Mach number and the strength of the turbulence.