Dynamics of magnetic flux loops in cooling-flow clusters of galaxies |
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Authors: | Essam Zoabi Noam Soker & Oded Regev |
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Institution: | Department of Physics, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel,;Department of Physics, University of Haifa at Oranim, Tivon 36006, Israel |
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Abstract: | We study the dynamics of magnetic flux loops embedded in an intracluster medium. In order to perform the calculations semi-analytically we make several simplifying assumptions, which include a treatment of only the two ends of the magnetic flux loops, assuming a simple relation between the density and the magnetic field and neglecting heat conduction. Our results indicate that the existence of a large number of magnetic flux loops can naturally lead to a multiphase intracluster medium. A multiphase intracluster medium is inferred from observations of the mass deposition rate in many cooling-flow clusters. The loops will be observed as 'filaments' having different density and temperature from their surroundings, namely X-ray filaments. X-ray filaments have been discovered in a few cases, although their discovery is controversial. Our model predicts that many such X-ray filaments will be discovered with future high-spatial-resolution X-ray telescopes, such as AXAF . |
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Keywords: | MHD galaxies: clusters: general galaxies: cooling flows intergalactic medium galaxies: magnetic fields |
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