Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T19:47:53.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Alternatives to the Existence of Large Cooling Flows

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Wallace Tucker
Wallace Tucker*
Affiliation:
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Arguments against the existence of large scale cooling flows in clusters of galaxies are presented. The evidence for cooling flows is all circumstantial, consisting of observations of cool gas or hot gas with a radiative cooling time less than the Hubble time, or a central peak in the x-ray surface brightness profile. There is no evidence for large quantities (several tens to several hundreds of solar masses per year) of matter actually flowing anywhere. On the contrary, several lines of evidence — stellar dynamics, observations of the amount of star formation, x-ray surface brightness observations, theoretical calculations of the growth of thermal instabilities, the amount of cold gas — suggest that cooling flows, if they exist, must be suppressed by one to two orders of magnitude from the values implied by simple estimates based on the radiative cooling time of the x-ray emitting gas. Two heat sources which might accomplish this — thermal conduction and relativistic particles, are considered and an alternative to the standard model for cooling flows is presented: an accretion flow with feedback wherein the accretion of gas into a massive black hole in the central galaxy generates high energy particles that heat the gas and act to limit the accretion.

Type
6. Clusters of Galaxies, Cooling Flows
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 115: High Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy of Cosmic Plasmas , 1990 , pp. 232 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

References

Arnaud, K. and Fabian, A. 1988, in preparation.Google Scholar
Balbus, S. and Soker, N. 1988, this symposium.Google Scholar
Bertschinger, E. and Meiksen, A. 1986, Ap.J., 306, L1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohringer, H. and Morfill, G. 1988, Ap.J., 330, 609.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Jong, T., Norgaard-Nielsen, H., Jorgensen, H., and Hansen, L. 1988, preprint.Google Scholar
Fabian, A. 1988a, in Cooling Flows in Clusters and Galaxies, ed. Fabian, A. (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fabian, A. 1988b, this symposium.Google Scholar
Fabian, A., Nulsen, P. and Canizares, C. 1982, MNRAS, 201, 933.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friaca, A. 1986, Astron.Ap., 164, 6.Google Scholar
Lea, S. and Holman, G. 1978, Ap.J., 222, 29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malogoli, A., Rosner, R. and Bodo, G. 1987, Ap.J., 319, 622.Google Scholar
Mathews, W. 1988, in Cooling Flows in Clusters and Galaxies, ed. Fabian, A. (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht).Google Scholar
Miller, L. 1988, in Cooling Flows in Clusters and Galaxies, ed. Fabian, A. (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht).Google Scholar
Mushotzky, R. and Szymkowiak, A. 1988, in Cooling Flows in Clusters and Galaxies, ed. Fabian, A. (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht).Google Scholar
Nelsen, P. 1988, in Cooling Flows in Clusters and Galaxies, ed. Fabian, A. (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht).Google Scholar
O’Connell, R. and McNamara, B. 1988, in Cooling Flows in Clusters and Galaxies, ed. Fabian, A. (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht).Google Scholar