The Effect of Helium Sedimentation on Galaxy Cluster Masses and Scaling Relations

Recent theoretical studies predict that the inner regions of galaxy clusters may have an enhanced helium abundance due to sedimentation over the cluster lifetime. If sedimentation is not suppressed (e.g., by tangled magnetic fields), this may significantly affect the cluster mass estimates. We use Chandra X-ray observations of eight relaxed galaxy clusters to investigate the upper limits to the effect of helium sedimentation on the measurement of cluster masses and the best-fit slopes of the Y_X - M_500 and Y_X - M_2500 scaling relations. We calculated gas mass and total mass in two limiting cases: a uniform, un-enhanced abundance distribution and a radial distribution from numerical simulations of helium sedimentation on a timescale of 11 Gyrs. The assumed helium sedimentation model, on average, produces a negligible increase in the gas mass inferred within large radii (r < r500) (1.3 +/- 1.2 per cent) and a (10.2 +/- 5.5) per cent mean decrease in the total mass inferred within r < r500. Significantly stronger effects in the gas mass (10.5 +/- 0.8 per cent) and total mass (25.1 +/- 1.1 per cent) are seen at small radii owing to a larger variance in helium abundance in the inner region, r < 0.1 r500. We find that the slope of the Y_X -M_500 scaling relation is not significantly affected by helium sedimentation.Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Heating cooling flows with jets

Active galactic nuclei are clearly heating gas in `cooling flows'. The effectiveness and spatial distribution of the heating are controversial. We use three-dimensional simulations on adaptive grids to study the impact on a cooling flow of weak, subrelativistic jets. The simulations show cavities and vortex rings as in the observations. The cavities are fast-expanding dynamical objects rather than buoyant bubbles as previously modelled, but shocks still remain extremely hard to detect with X-rays. At late times the cavities turn into overdensities that strongly excite the cluster's g-modes. These modes damp on a long timescale. Radial mixing is shown to be an important phenomenon, but the jets weaken the metallicity gradient only very near the centre. The central entropy density is modestly increased by the jets. We use a novel algorithm to impose the jets on the simulations.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Revised version taking referee's comments into account, minor changes. High-resolution version and MPEGs can be found at http://www.clusterheating.org/papers.ph

An approach to understanding hydrologic connectivity on the hillslope and the implications for nutrient transport

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94780/1/gbc975.pd

Calculations of river-runoff in the giss GCM - impact of a new land-surface paramatrization and runoff routing model on the hydrology of the Amazon river

This study examines the impact of a new land-surface parameterization and a river routing scheme on the hydrology of the Amazon basin, as depicted by the NASA/Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) global climate model (GCM). The more physically realistic land surface scheme introduces a vegetation canopy resistance and a six-layer soil system. The new routing scheme allows runoff to travel from a river's headwater to its mouth according to topography and other channel characteristics and improves the timing of the peak flow. River runoff is examined near the mouth of the Amazon and for all of its sub-basins. With the new land-surface parameterization, river runoff increases significantly and is consistent with that observed in most basins and at the mouth. The representation of the river hydrology in small basins is not as satisfactory as in larger basins. One positive impact of the new land-surface parameterization is that it produces more realistic evaporation over the Amazon basin, which was too high in the previous version of the GCM. The realistic depiction of evaporation also affects the thermal regime in the lower atmosphere in the Amazon. In fact, the lower evaporation in some portions of the basin reduces the cloudiness, increases the solar radiation reaching the ground, increases the net radiation at the surface, and warms the surface as compared to observations. Further GCM improvement is needed to obtain a better representation of rainfall processes.Pages: 349-36