Evolution of vorticity and enstrophy in the intracluster medium

Abstract

Turbulence generated by large-scale motions during structure formation affects the evolution of the thermal and non-thermal components of the intracluster medium. As enstrophy is a measure of the magnitude of vorticity, we study the generation and evolution of turbulence by analysing the Lagrangian history of enstrophy. For this purpose we combine cosmological simulations carried out with the ENZO-code with our Lagrangian post-processing tool CRaTer. This way we are able to quantify the individual source terms of enstrophy in the course of the accretion of groups onto galaxy clusters. Here we focus on the redshift range from $z=1$ to $z=0$. Finally, we measure the rate of dissipation of turbulence and estimate the resulting amplification of intracluster magnetic fields. We find that compressive and baroclinic motions are the main sources of enstrophy, while stretching motions and dissipation affect most of the ensuing enstrophy evolution. The rate of turbulent dissipation is able to sustain the amplification of intracluster magnetic fields to observed levels.

14 pages, 17 Figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

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• A multifiltering study of turbulence in a large sample of simulated galaxy clusters
• Troubled cosmic flows: turbulence, enstrophy and helicity from the assembly history of the intracluster medium
• A multishock scenario for the formation of radio relics
• Unraveling Baroclinicity in Black Hole Weather Storms
• Properties of Polarized Synchrotron Emission from Fluctuation Dynamo Action -- II. Effects of Turbulence Driving in the ICM and Beam Smoothing