2,128 research outputs found
Simulating cosmic rays in clusters of galaxies - II. A unified scheme for radio halos and relics with predictions of the gamma-ray emission
The thermal plasma of galaxy clusters lost most of its information on how
structure formation proceeded as a result of dissipative processes. In
contrast, non-equilibrium distributions of cosmic rays (CR) preserve the
information about their injection and transport processes and provide thus a
unique window of current and past structure formation processes. This
information can be unveiled by observations of non-thermal radiative processes,
including radio synchrotron, hard X-ray, and gamma-ray emission. To explore
this, we use high-resolution simulations of a sample of galaxy clusters
spanning a mass range of about two orders of magnitudes, and follow
self-consistent CR physics on top of the radiative hydrodynamics. We model CR
electrons that are accelerated at cosmological structure formation shocks and
those that are produced in hadronic interactions of CRs with ambient gas
protons. We find that CR protons trace the time integrated non-equilibrium
activities of clusters while shock-accelerated CR electrons probe current
accretion and merging shock waves. The resulting inhomogeneous synchrotron
emission matches the properties of observed radio relics. We propose a unified
model for the generation of radio halos. Giant radio halos are dominated in the
centre by secondary synchrotron emission with a transition to the synchrotron
radiation emitted from shock-accelerated electrons in the cluster periphery.
This model is able to explain the observed correlation of mergers with radio
halos, the larger peripheral variation of the spectral index, and the large
scatter in the scaling relation between cluster mass and synchrotron emission.
Future low-frequency radio telescopes (LOFAR, GMRT, MWA, LWA) are expected to
probe the accretion shocks of clusters. [abridged]Comment: 32 pages, 19 figures, small changes to match the version to be
published by MNRAS, full resolution version available at
http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~pfrommer/Publications/CRs_non-thermal.pd
A maximum-entropy method for reconstructing the projected mass distribution of gravitational lenses
The maximum-entropy method is applied to the problem of reconstructing the
projected mass density of a galaxy cluster using its gravitational lensing
effects on background galaxies. We demonstrate the method by reconstructing the
mass distribution in a model cluster using simulated shear and magnification
data to which Gaussian noise is added. The mass distribution is reconstructed
directly and the inversion is regularised using the entropic prior for this
positive additive distribution. For realistic noise levels, we find that the
method faithfully reproduces the main features of the cluster mass distribution
not only within the observed field but also slightly beyond it. We estimate the
uncertainties on the reconstruction by calculating an analytic approximation to
the covariance matrix of the reconstruction values of each pixel. This result
is compared with error estimates derived from Monte-Carlo simulations for
different noise realisations and found to be in good agreement.Comment: Version accepted by MNRAS. New figure showing power spectrum and auto
correlation function of the residual map; other minor changes. 10 pages
including 9 figure
Sequential Design with Mutual Information for Computer Experiments (MICE): Emulation of a Tsunami Model
Computer simulators can be computationally intensive to run over a large
number of input values, as required for optimization and various uncertainty
quantification tasks. The standard paradigm for the design and analysis of
computer experiments is to employ Gaussian random fields to model computer
simulators. Gaussian process models are trained on input-output data obtained
from simulation runs at various input values. Following this approach, we
propose a sequential design algorithm, MICE (Mutual Information for Computer
Experiments), that adaptively selects the input values at which to run the
computer simulator, in order to maximize the expected information gain (mutual
information) over the input space. The superior computational efficiency of the
MICE algorithm compared to other algorithms is demonstrated by test functions,
and a tsunami simulator with overall gains of up to 20% in that case
A Note on the Ruelle Pressure for a Dilute Disordered Sinai Billiard
The topological pressure is evaluated for a dilute random Lorentz gas, in the
approximation that takes into account only uncorrelated collisions between the
moving particle and fixed, hard sphere scatterers. The pressure is obtained
analytically as a function of a temperature-like parameter, beta, and of the
density of scatterers. The effects of correlated collisions on the topological
pressure can be described qualitatively, at least, and they significantly
modify the results obtained by considering only uncorrelated collision
sequences. As a consequence, for large systems, the range of beta-values over
which our expressions for the topological pressure are valid becomes very
small, approaching zero, in most cases, as the inverse of the logarithm of
system size.Comment: 15 pages RevTeX with 2 figures. Final version with some typo's
correcte
Three-Dimensional Simulations of Bi-Directed Magnetohydrodynamic Jets Interacting with Cluster Environments
We report on a series of three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of
active galactic nucleus (AGN) jet propagation in realistic models of magnetized
galaxy clusters. We are primarily interested in the details of energy transfer
between jets and the intracluster medium (ICM) to help clarify what role such
flows could have in the reheating of cluster cores. Our simulated jets feature
a range of intermittency behaviors, including intermittent jets that
periodically switch on and off and one model jet that shuts down completely,
naturally creating a relic plume. The ICM into which these jets propagate
incorporates tangled magnetic field geometries and density substructure
designed to mimic some likely features of real galaxy clusters. We find that
our jets are characteristically at least 60% efficient at transferring thermal
energy to the ICM. Irreversible heat energy is not uniformly distributed,
however, instead residing preferentially in regions very near the jet/cocoon
boundaries. While intermittency affects the details of how, when, and where
this energy is deposited, all of our models generically fail to heat the
cluster cores uniformly. Both the detailed density structure and nominally weak
magnetic fields in the ICM play interesting roles in perturbing the flows,
particularly when the jets are non-steady. Still, this perturbation is never
sufficient to isotropize the jet energy deposition, suggesting that some other
ingredient is required for AGN jets to successfully reheat cluster cores.Comment: 19 pages, 18 figures, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
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