Chandra Observations Of Cooling Flows And Brightest Cluster Galaxies
Abstract
Studies of clusters of galaxies have shown that the plasma in the intracluster medium of the galaxy loses energy by the emission of X-rays, possibly in the form of a cooling flow. Through the cooling flow process, the temperature of the plasma greatly cools on scales of tens to 100 kpc from the nucleus of the galaxy, and is then thought to form stars. This cooling flow can consist of between 10 and 1000 solar masses of plasma per year. The BCGs: Abell 1664, Abell 1835, RXJ 2129+00, and ZWCL 3146 show evidence for star formation based on Spitzer observations and we are now studying the X-ray emission data from these galaxies collected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. To determine if cooling flows are apparent in more BCGs, we have to fit the spectrum of these BCGs to a cooling flow model. The model constrains high and low temperature components of the gas, mass accretion rates, and whether or not there is evidence of a cooling flow.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #216
- Pub Date:
- May 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AAS...21641803C