Cold Feedback in Cooling-Flow Galaxy Clusters

We put forward an alternative view to the Bondi-driven feedback between heating and cooling of the intra-cluster medium (ICM) in cooling flow galaxies and clusters. We adopt the popular view that the heating is due to an active galactic nucleus (AGN), i.e. a central black hole accreting mass and launching jets and/or winds. We propose that the feedback occurs with the entire cool inner region (5-30 kpc). A moderate cooling flow does exist here, and non-linear over-dense blobs of gas cool fast and are removed from the ICM before experiencing the next major AGN heating event. Some of these blobs may not accrete on the central black hole, but may form stars and cold molecular clouds. We discuss the conditions under which the dense blobs may cool to low temperatures and feed the black hole.Comment: 6 pages, no figures, to appear in the Proceedings of "Heating vs. Cooling in Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies", August 2006, Garching (Germany

Observations of metals in the intra-cluster medium

Because of their deep gravitational potential wells, clusters of galaxies retain all the metals produced by the stellar populations of the member galaxies. Most of these metals reside in the hot plasma which dominates the baryon content of clusters. This makes them excellent laboratories for the study of the nucleosynthesis and chemical enrichment history of the Universe. Here we review the history, current possibilities and limitations of the abundance studies, and the present observational status of X-ray measurements of the chemical composition of the intra-cluster medium. We summarise the latest progress in using the abundance patterns in clusters to put constraints on theoretical models of supernovae and we show how cluster abundances provide new insights into the star-formation history of the Universe.Comment: 28 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews, special issue "Clusters of galaxies: beyond the thermal view", Editor J.S. Kaastra, Chapter 16; work done by an international team at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI), Bern, organised by J.S. Kaastra, A.M. Bykov, S. Schindler & J.A.M. Bleeke

Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter from Fermi Observations of Nearby Galaxies and Clusters

We analyze the impact of Fermi gamma-ray observations (primarily non-detections) of selected nearby galaxies, including dwarf spheroidals, and of clusters of galaxies on decaying dark matter models. We show that the fact that galaxy clusters do not shine in gamma rays puts the most stringent limits available to-date on the lifetime of dark matter particles for a wide range of particle masses and decay final states. In particular, our results put strong constraints on the possibility of ascribing to decaying dark matter both the increasing positron fraction reported by PAMELA and the high-energy feature in the electron-positron spectrum measured by Fermi. Observations of nearby dwarf galaxies and of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) do not provide as strong limits as those from galaxy clusters, while still improving on previous constraints in some cases.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, submitted to JCAP, revised version with some additions and correction

The Physics of Cluster Mergers

Clusters of galaxies generally form by the gravitational merger of smaller clusters and groups. Major cluster mergers are the most energetic events in the Universe since the Big Bang. Some of the basic physical properties of mergers will be discussed, with an emphasis on simple analytic arguments rather than numerical simulations. Semi-analytic estimates of merger rates are reviewed, and a simple treatment of the kinematics of binary mergers is given. Mergers drive shocks into the intracluster medium, and these shocks heat the gas and should also accelerate nonthermal relativistic particles. X-ray observations of shocks can be used to determine the geometry and kinematics of the merger. Many clusters contain cooling flow cores; the hydrodynamical interactions of these cores with the hotter, less dense gas during mergers are discussed. As a result of particle acceleration in shocks, clusters of galaxies should contain very large populations of relativistic electrons and ions. Electrons with Lorentz factors gamma~300 (energies E = gamma m_e c^2 ~ 150 MeV) are expected to be particularly common. Observations and models for the radio, extreme ultraviolet, hard X-ray, and gamma-ray emission from nonthermal particles accelerated in these mergers are described.Comment: 38 pages with 9 embedded Postscript figures. To appear in Merging Processes in Clusters of Galaxies, edited by L. Feretti, I. M. Gioia, and G. Giovannini (Dordrecht: Kluwer), in press (2001

Constraints on Dark Matter Annihilation in Clusters of Galaxies with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

Nearby clusters and groups of galaxies are potentially bright sources of high-energy gamma-ray emission resulting from the pair-annihilation of dark matter particles. However, no significant gamma-ray emission has been detected so far from clusters in the first 11 months of observations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. We interpret this non-detection in terms of constraints on dark matter particle properties. In particular for leptonic annihilation final states and particle masses greater than ~200 GeV, gamma-ray emission from inverse Compton scattering of CMB photons is expected to dominate the dark matter annihilation signal from clusters, and our gamma-ray limits exclude large regions of the parameter space that would give a good fit to the recent anomalous Pamela and Fermi-LAT electron-positron measurements. We also present constraints on the annihilation of more standard dark matter candidates, such as the lightest neutralino of supersymmetric models. The constraints are particularly strong when including the fact that clusters are known to contain substructure at least on galaxy scales, increasing the expected gamma-ray flux by a factor of ~5 over a smooth-halo assumption. We also explore the effect of uncertainties in cluster dark matter density profiles, finding a systematic uncertainty in the constraints of roughly a factor of two, but similar overall conclusions. In this work, we focus on deriving limits on dark matter models; a more general consideration of the Fermi-LAT data on clusters and clusters as gamma-ray sources is forthcoming.Comment: accepted to JCAP, Corresponding authors: T.E. Jeltema and S. Profumo, minor revisions to be consistent with accepted versio

Clumpiness enhancement of charged cosmic rays from dark matter annihilation with Sommerfeld effect

Boost factors of dark matter annihilation into antiprotons and electrons/positrons due to the clumpiness of dark matter distribution are studied in detail in this work, taking the Sommerfeld effect into account. It has been thought that the Sommerfeld effect, if exists, will be more remarkable in substructures because they are colder than the host halo, and may result in a larger boost factor. We give a full calculation of the boost factors based on the recent N-body simulations. Three typical cases of Sommerfeld effects, the non-resonant, moderately resonant and strongly resonant cases are considered. We find that for the non-resonant and moderately resonant cases the enhancement effects of substructures due to the Sommerfeld effect are very small ($\sim \mathcal{O}(1)$) because of the saturation behavior of the Sommerfeld effect. For the strongly resonant case the boost factor is typically smaller than $\sim \mathcal{O}(10)$. However, it is possible in some very extreme cases that DM distribution is adopted to give the maximal annihilation the boost factor can reach up to $\sim 1000$. The variances of the boost factors due to different realizations of substructures distribution are also discussed in the work.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, 2 table. The detailed fomula of the propagation and boost factor are moved to the Appendix. Accepted by JCA

Trouble for AGN Feedback? The Puzzle of the Core of the Galaxy Cluster AWM 4

The core of the relaxed cluster AWM 4 is characterized by a unique combination of properties which defy a popular scenario for AGN heating of cluster cores. A flat inner temperature profile is indicative of a past, major heating episode which completely erased the cool core, as testified by the high central cooling time (3 Gyr) and by the high central entropy level ( 3c60 keV cm2 ). Yet the presence of a 1.4 GHz active central radio galaxy with extended radio lobes out to 100 kpc reveals recent feeding of the central massive black hole. A system like AWM 4 should have no radio emission at all if only feedback from the cooling hot gas regulates the AGN activity

Hydrostatic Gas Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Masses: Implications for Hydrostatic Equilibrium and Dynamical Modeling in a Sample of Early-type Galaxies

We present new mass measurements for the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the centers of three early-type galaxies. The gas pressure in the surrounding, hot interstellar medium (ISM) is measured through spatially resolved spectroscopy with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, allowing the SMBH mass (MBH) to be inferred directly under the hydrostatic approximation. This technique does not require calibration against other SMBH measurement methods and its accuracy depends only on the ISM being close to hydrostatic, which is supported by the smooth X-ray isophotes of the galaxies. Combined with results from our recent study of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4649, this brings the number of galaxies with SMBHs measured in this way to four. Of these, three already have mass determinations from the kinematics of either the stars or a central gas disk, and hence join only a handful of galaxies with MBH measured by more than one technique. We find good agreement between the different methods, providing support for the assumptions implicit in both the hydrostatic and the dynamical models. The stellar mass-to-light ratios for each galaxy inferred by our technique are in agreement with the predictions of stellar population synthesis models assuming a Kroupa initial mass function (IMF). This concurrence implies that no more than ∼10%–20% of the ISM pressure is nonthermal, unless there is a conspiracy between the shape of the IMF and nonthermal pressure. Finally, we compute Bondi accretion rates (M˙ bondi), finding that the two galaxies with the highest M˙ bondi exhibit little evidence of X-ray cavities, suggesting that the correlation with the active galactic nuclei jet power takes time to be established

Large Scatter in X-Ray Emission among Elliptical Galaxies: Correlations with Mass of Host Halo

Optically similar elliptical galaxies have an enormous range of X-ray luminosities. We show that this range can be attributed to large variations in the dark halo mass determined from X-ray observations. The Mvir K-band luminosity of ellipticals varies with virial mass, , but with considerable scatter, probably due to 0.750.22 LK 1d Mvir the stochastic incidence of massive satellite galaxies that merge by dynamical friction to form group-centered ellipticals. Both the observed X-ray luminosity and are sufficiently sensitive to the virial 2.4 1.6 L X vir X 1d M L /LK 1d Mvir mass to explain the wide variation observed in among galaxies of similar . The central galaxy supernova L L X K energy per particle of diffuse gas increases dramatically with decreasing virial mass, and elliptical galaxies with the lowest X-ray luminosities (and ) are easily explained by supernova-driven outflows

X-Ray Observations of Cluster Mergers

X-ray observations have played a key role in the study of substructure and merging in galaxy clusters. I review the evidence for cluster substructure and mergers obtained from X-ray observations with satellites that operated before Chandra and XMM. Different techniques to study cluster mergers via X-ray imaging and spectral data are discussed with an emphasis on the quantitative analysis of cluster morphologies. I discuss the implications of measurements of cluster morphologies for cosmology and the origin of radio halos