Strong suppression of heat conduction in a laboratory replica of galaxy-cluster turbulent plasmas
arXiv:2105.08461 · doi:10.1126/sciadv.abj6799
Abstract
Galaxy clusters are filled with hot, diffuse X-ray emitting plasma, with a stochastically tangled magnetic field whose energy is close to equipartition with the energy of the turbulent motions \cite{zweibel1997, Vacca}. In the cluster cores, the temperatures remain anomalously high compared to what might be expected considering that the radiative cooling time is short relative to the Hubble time \cite{cowie1977,fabian1994}. While feedback from the central active galactic nuclei (AGN) \cite{fabian2012,birzan2012,churazov2000} is believed to provide most of the heating, there has been a long debate as to whether conduction of heat from the bulk to the core can help the core to reach the observed temperatures \cite{narayan2001,ruszkowski2002,kunz2011}, given the presence of tangled magnetic fields. Interestingly, evidence of very sharp temperature gradients in structures like cold fronts implies a high degree of suppression of thermal conduction \cite{markevitch2007}. To address the problem of thermal conduction in a magnetized and turbulent plasma, we have created a replica of such a system in a laser laboratory experiment. Our data show a reduction of local heat transport by two orders of magnitude or more, leading to strong temperature variations on small spatial scales, as is seen in cluster plasmas \cite{markevitch2003}.
References in corpus (23)
- Observational Evidence of AGN Feedback
- Shocks and cold fronts in galaxy clusters
- Thermal Conduction in Clusters of Galaxies
- Laboratory evidence of dynamo amplification of magnetic fields in a turbulent plasma
- Heating, conduction and minimum temperatures in cooling flows
- A Solution Accurate, Efficient and Stable Unsplit Staggered Mesh Scheme for Three Dimensional Magnetohydrodynamics
- A thermally stable heating mechanism for the intracluster medium: turbulence, magnetic fields and plasma instabilities
- Chandra Temperature Map of Abell 754 and Constraints on Thermal Conduction
- The duty cycle of radio-mode feedback in complete samples of clusters
- Cold Fronts and Gas Sloshing in Galaxy Clusters with Anisotropic Thermal Conduction
- Suppression of electron thermal conduction by whistler turbulence in a sustained thermal gradient
- Self-inhibiting thermal conduction in high-beta, whistler-unstable plasma
- Proton imaging of stochastic magnetic fields
- Suppression of thermal conduction in a mirror-unstable plasma
- Numerical modeling of laser-driven experiments aiming to demonstrate magnetic field amplification via turbulent dynamo
- Time-resolved fast turbulent dynamo in a laser plasma
- Arithmetic with X-ray images of galaxy clusters: effective equation of state for small-scale perturbations in the ICM
- Experimental demonstration of an inertial collimation mechanism in nested outflows
- Asymmetric, arc minute scale structures around NGC 1275
- Mega-Gauss Plasma Jet Creation Using a Ring of Laser Beams
- Suppression of local heat flux in a turbulent magnetized intracluster medium
- Cosmological Simulations of Isotropic Conduction in Galaxy Clusters
- Numerical Simulation of magnetized jet creation using a hollow ring of laser beams
Cited by in corpus (8)
- Core-collapse supernova inside the core of a young massive star cluster: 3D MHD simulations
- Insensitivity of a turbulent laser-plasma dynamo to initial conditions
- Simulations of Weakly Magnetized Turbulent Mixing Layers
- Effect of non-local transport of hot electrons on the laser-target ablation
- Impact of Electron Transport Models on Capillary Discharge Plasmas
- Collisional whistler instability and electron temperature staircase in inhomogeneous plasma
- Constraints on thermal conductivity in the merging cluster Abell 2146
- Transport of electrons in tangled magnetic fields