Skip to main content
SearchLoginLogin or Signup

The Many Phases of the Filaments in Cooling Flow Clusters

Presentation #401.06 in the session Galaxy Clusters/Large Scale Structure.

Published onMay 03, 2024
The Many Phases of the Filaments in Cooling Flow Clusters

Observations from state-of-the-art facilities have revolutionized our understanding of the interrelation between the intra-cluster medium (ICM), optical emission-line gas, and the central galaxy in the cores of groups and clusters. In particular, central galaxies in clusters and massive groups host complex kiloparsec multiphase filamentary structures, mainly observed in warm ionized and cold molecular gas. These structures are believed to be formed through thermal instabilities driven mainly by active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback. However, the details behind the formation mechanism of the filaments are still unknown, and the relationship between the different gas phase temperatures is poorly understood. In this talk, I will present a a tight positive correlation between the X-ray surface brightness and the Hα surface brightness of the multiphase filaments using Chandra and MUSE observations, in a sample of seven X-ray bright cooling-flow clusters, covering scales of ~5 up tp 70 kpc. This discovery was done by using a novel method of blind image decomposition, which allow us to isolated the hot phase of the X-ray filaments, which was blended with the bright diffuse ICM, to unveil its relation with the warm phase. Additionally, I will present a strong correlation between the gas abundance of the hot intracluster medium and the warm phase of the filaments. These two discoveries suggests that the warm phase of the filaments is directly related to the cooling, and provides a major evidence supporting theoretical models of Chaotic Cold Accretion and precipitation models, in which the turbulent multiphase condensation and excitation mechanisms shape the tight co-evolution of the hot and warm filaments.

Comments
0
comment
No comments here