Powering The Intra-cluster Filaments in Cool-Core Clusters of Galaxies

The first radio surveys of the sky discovered that some large clusters of galaxies contained powerful sources of synchrotron emission. Optical images showed that long linear filaments with bizarre emission-line spectra permeated the intra-cluster medium. Recent observations in the infrared and radio show that these filaments have very strong emission lines of molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The mass of molecular material is quite large, the gas is quite warm, and the filaments have not formed stars despite their ~Gyr age. I will discuss the general astrophysical context of large clusters of galaxies and how large masses of molecular gas can be heated to produce what we observe. The unique properties of the filaments are a result of the unique environment. Magnetically confined molecular filaments are surrounded by the hot intra-cluster medium. Thermal particles with keV energies enter atomic and molecular regions and produce a shower of secondary nonthermal electrons. These secondaries collisionally heat, excite, dissociate, and ionize the cool gas. While ionization is dominated by these secondary particles, recombination is controlled by charge exchange, which produces the unusual optical emission line spectrum. I will describe some of the physical processes that are unique to this environment and outline some of the atomic physics issues.Comment: Atomic processes in plasmas - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Atomic processes in plasmas (2011) Edited by: KM Aggarwal and SFC Shearer (AIP

Magnetic fields and the location of the PDR

I review recent studies of the emission-line regions in Orion and M17. Both have similar geometries, a bubble of hot shocked gas surrounding the central star cluster, with H^+, H^0, and H_2 regions, often referred to as H II regions, PDRs, and molecular clouds, forming successive shells on the surface of a molecular cloud. The magnetic fields in the H^0 regions have been measured with 21 cm Zeeman polarization and are found to be 1 -- 2 dex stronger than the field in the diffuse ISM. The regions appear to be in rough hydrostatic equilibrium. The H^+ region is pushed away from the star cluster by starlight radiation pressure. Since most starlight is in ionizing radiation, most of its outward push will act on the H^+ region and then on to the H^0 region. The magnetic pressure in the H^0 region balances the momentum in starlight and together they set the location of the H^0 region. The picture is that, when the star cluster formed, it created a bubble of ionized gas which expanded and compressing surrounding H^0 and H_2 regions. The magnetic field was amplified until its pressure was able to support the momentum in starlight. This offers a great simplification in understanding the underlying physics that establishes parameters for PDR models

Prospects for the Search for a Doubly-Charged Higgs in the Left-Right Symmetric Model with ATLAS

We estimate the potential for observation at the LHC of a doubly charged Higgs boson, as predicted in Left-Right symmetric models. Single production by vector boson fusion, $W^+W^+ \to \Delta_{L,R}^{++}$ and pair production by the Drell-Yan process $q \bar q \to \Delta_{L,R}^{++}\Delta_{L,R}^{--}$ are considered. Various decay channels are investigated: dileptons, including pairs of $\tau$'s, as well as $WW

Revisiting He-like X-ray Emission Line Plasma Diagnostics

A complete model of helium-like line and continuum emission has been incorporated into the plasma simulation code Cloudy. All elements between He and Zn are treated, any number of levels can be considered, and radiative and collisional processes are included. This includes photoionization from all levels, line transfer including continuum pumping and destruction by background opacities, scattering, and collisional processes. The model is calculated self-consistently along with the ionization and thermal structure of the surrounding nebula. The result is a complete line and continuum spectrum of the plasma. Here we focus on the ions of the He I sequence and reconsider the standard helium-like X-ray diagnostics. We first consider semi-analytical predictions and compare these with previous work in the low-density, optically-thin limit. We then perform numerical calculations of helium-like X-ray emission (such as is observed in some regions of Seyferts) and predict line ratios as a function of ionizing flux, hydrogen density, and column density. In particular, we demonstrate that, in photoionized plasmas, the $R$-ratio, a density indicator in a collisional plasma, depends on the ionization fraction and is strongly affected by optical depth for large column densities. We also introduce the notion that the $R$-ratio is a measure of the incident continuum at UV wavelengths. The $G$-ratio, which is temperature-sensitive in a collisional plasma, is also discussed, and shown to be strongly affected by continuum pumping and optical depth as well. These distinguish a photoionized plasma from the more commonly studied collisional case.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures, accepted to Ap

Cosmic rays and the emission line regions of active galactic nuclei

The effects that the synchrotron emitting relativistic electrons could have on the emission line regions which characterize active nuclei are discussed. Detailed models of both the inner, dense, broad line region and the outer, lower density, narrow line region are presented, together with the first models of the optically emitting gas often found within extended radio lobes. If the relativistic gas which produces the synchrotron radio emission is mixed with the emission line region gas then significant changes in the emission line spectrum will result. The effects of the synchrotron emitting electrons on filaments in the Crab Nebula are discussed in an appendix, along with a comparison between the experimental calculations, which employ the mean escape probability formalism, and recent Hubbard and Puetter models