Heating Cluster Gas

Abstract

It is now generally agreed that some process prevents the diffuse gas in galaxy clusters from cooling significantly, although there is less agreement about the nature of this process. I suggest that cluster gas may be heated by a natural extension of the mechanism establishing the $\mbh-σ$ and $\mbh - M_{\rm bulge}$ relations in galaxies, namely outflows resulting from super--Eddington accretion on to the galaxy's central black hole. The black holes in cD galaxies are sporadically fed at unusually high Eddington ratios. These are triggered as the cluster gas tries to cool, but rapidly quenched by the resulting shock heating. This mechanism is close to the optimum efficiency for using accretion energy to reheat cluster gas, and probably more effective than `radio mode' heating by jets for example. The excess energy is radiated in active phases of the cD galaxy nucleus, probably highly anisotropically.

ApJ Lett, in press, 4 pages

References in corpus (17)

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• Heating cooling flows with jets
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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Galaxy Formation Theory
• Black Hole Outflows
• High redshift X-ray cooling-core cluster associated with the luminous radio loud quasar 3C186
• Investigating the properties of AGN feedback in hot atmospheres triggered by cooling-induced gravitational collapse
• The changing ISM of massive elliptical galaxies and cosmic evolution of radio galaxies and quasars
• Why and when is internally-driven AGN feedback energetically favoured?
• The Unusual Weak-Line Quasar PG1407+265 and its Foreground z~0.7 X-ray Cluster