Calibrating AGN Feedback in Clusters

Whether caused by AGN jets, shocks, or mergers, the most definitive evidence for heating in cluster cores comes from X-ray spectroscopy. Unfortunately such spectra are essentially limited to studying the emission spectrum from the cluster as a whole. However since the same underlying emission measure distribution produces both the observed CCD and RGS spectra, X-ray imaging can still provide spatial information on the heating process. Using Chandra archival data for a sample of 9 clusters, we demonstrate how imaging data can be used to constrain departures from a canonical, isobaric cooling flow model as a function of position in a given cluster. The results of this analysis are also shown for the deep archival exposure of the Perseus cluster. Such heating maps can provide constraints on both the location and magnitude of the heating in the cores of clusters. When combined with detections and spectral index maps from low-frequency radio observations, these maps can be used to distinguish between different models for heating in these objects.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; to appear in the proceedings of "The Monsters' Fiery Breath", Madison, Wisconsin 1-5 June 2009, Eds. Sebastian Heinz & Eric Wilcot

Limits to compression with cascaded quadratic soliton compressors

We study cascaded quadratic soliton compressors and address the physical mechanisms that limit the compression. A nonlocal model is derived, and the nonlocal response is shown to have an additional oscillatory component in the nonstationary regime when the group-velocity mismatch (GVM) is strong. This inhibits efficient compression. Raman-like perturbations from the cascaded nonlinearity, competing cubic nonlinearities, higher-order dispersion, and soliton energy may also limit compression, and through realistic numerical simulations we point out when each factor becomes important. We find that it is theoretically possible to reach the single-cycle regime by compressing high-energy fs pulses for wavelengths $\lambda=1.0-1.3 \mu{\rm m}$ in a $\beta$-barium-borate crystal, and it requires that the system is in the stationary regime, where the phase mismatch is large enough to overcome the detrimental GVM effects. However, the simulations show that reaching single-cycle duration is ultimately inhibited by competing cubic nonlinearities as well as dispersive waves, that only show up when taking higher-order dispersion into account.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Optics Expres

Nonlocal explanation of stationary and nonstationary regimes in cascaded soliton pulse compression

We study soliton pulse compression in materials with cascaded quadratic nonlinearities, and show that the group-velocity mismatch creates two different temporally nonlocal regimes. They correspond to what is known as the stationary and nonstationary regimes. The theory accurately predicts the transition to the stationary regime, where highly efficient pulse compression is possible.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, published verison in Optics Letters. Contains revised equations, including an updated mode

Primeval Woman

https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/crs_books/1409/thumbnail.jp

Ultrafast and octave-spanning optical nonlinearities from strongly phase-mismatched cascaded interactions

Cascaded nonlinearities have attracted much interest, but ultrafast applications have been seriously hampered by the simultaneous requirements of being near phase-matching and having ultrafast femtosecond response times. Here we show that in strongly phase-mismatched nonlinear frequency conversion crystals the pump pulse can experience a large and extremely broadband self-defocusing cascaded Kerr-like nonlinearity. The large cascaded nonlinearity is ensured through interaction with the largest quadratic tensor element in the crystal, and the strong phase-mismatch ensures an ultrafast nonlinear response with an octave-spanning bandwidth. We verify this experimentally by showing few-cycle soliton compression with noncritical cascaded second-harmonic generation: Energetic 47 fs infrared pulses are compressed in a just 1-mm long bulk lithium niobate crystal to 17 fs (under 4 optical cycles) with 80% efficiency, and upon further propagation an octave-spanning supercontinuum is observed. Such ultrafast cascading is expected to occur for a broad range of pump wavelengths spanning the near- and mid-IR using standard nonlinear crystals.Comment: resubmitted, revised version, accepted for Phys. Rev. Let

Diffuse radio emission in MACS J0025.4−-1222: the effect of a major merger on bulk separation of ICM components

Mergers of galaxy clusters are among the most energetic events in the Universe. These events have significant impact on the intra-cluster medium, depositing vast amounts of energy - often in the form of shocks - as well as heavily influencing the properties of the constituent galaxy population. Many clusters have been shown to host large-scale diffuse radio emission, known variously as radio haloes and relics. These sources arise as a result of electron (re-)acceleration in cluster-scale magnetic fields, although the processes by which this occurs are still poorly understood. We present new, deep radio observations of the high-redshift galaxy cluster MACS J0025.4$-$1222, taken with the GMRT at 325 MHz, as well as new analysis of all archival $Chandra$ X-ray observations. We aim to investigate the potential of diffuse radio emission and categorise the radio population of this cluster, which has only been covered previously by shallow radio surveys. We produce low-resolution maps of MACS J0025.4$-$1222 through a combination of uv-tapering and subtracting the compact source population. Radial surface brightness and mass profiles are derived from the $Chandra$ data. We also derive a 2D map of the ICM temperature. For the first time, two sources of diffuse radio emission are detected in MACS J0025.4$-$1222, on linear scales of several hundred kpc. Given the redshift of the cluster and the assumed cosmology, these sources appear to be consistent with established trends in power scaling relations for radio relics. The X-ray temperature map presents evidence of an asymmetric temperature profile and tentative identification of a temperature jump associated with one relic. We classify the pair of diffuse radio sources in this cluster as a pair of radio relics, given their consistency with scaling relations, location toward the cluster outskirts, and the available X-ray data.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in A&

The Insignificance of Global Reheating in the Abell 1068 Cluster: X-Ray Analysis

We report on a Chandra observation of the massive, medium redshift (z=0.1386) cooling flow cluster Abell 1068. We detect a clear temperature gradient in the X-ray emitting gas from kT ~ 5 keV in the outer part of the cluster down to roughly 2 keV in the core, and a striking increase in the metallicity of the gas toward the cluster center. The total spectrum from the cluster can be fit by a cooling flow model with a total mass deposition rate of 150 solar masses/yr. Within the core (r < 30 kpc), the mass depositon rate of 40 solar masses/yr is comparable to estimates for the star formation rate from optical data. We find an apparent correlation between the cD galaxy's optical isophotes and enhanced metallicity isocontours in the central ~100 kpc of the cluster. We show that the approximate doubling of the metallicity associated with the cD can be plausibly explained by supernova explosions associated with the cD's ambient stellar population and the recent starburst. Finally, we calculate the amount of heating due to thermal conduction and show that this process is unlikely to offset cooling in Abell 1068.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 26 pages, 12 b+w figures, 3 color figure

Early Science with the Karoo Array Telescope: a Mini-Halo Candidate in Galaxy Cluster Abell 3667

Abell 3667 is among the most well-studied galaxy clusters in the Southern Hemisphere. It is known to host two giant radio relics and a head-tail radio galaxy as the brightest cluster galaxy. Recent work has suggested the additional presence of a bridge of diffuse synchrotron emission connecting the North-Western radio relic with the cluster centre. In this work, we present full-polarization observations of Abell 3667 conducted with the Karoo Array Telescope at 1.33 and 1.82 GHz. Our results show both radio relics as well as the brightest cluster galaxy. We use ancillary higher-resolution data to subtract the emission from this galaxy, revealing a localised excess, which we tentatively identify as a radio mini-halo. This mini-halo candidate has an integrated flux density of $67.2\pm4.9$ mJy beam$^{-1}$ at 1.37 GHz, corresponding to a radio power of P$_{\rm{1.4\,GHz}}=4.28\pm0.31\times10^{23}$ W Hz$^{-1}$, consistent with established trends in mini-halo power scaling.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, accepted MNRA