Cooling flows in clusters of galaxies

Abstract

The gas temperature in the cores of many clusters of galaxies drops inward by about a factor of three or more within the central 100kpc radius. The radiative cooling time drops over the same region from 5 or more Gyr down to about 10^8 yr. Although it would seem that cooling has taken place, XMM and Chandra spectra show no evidence for strong mass cooling rates of gas below 1-2 keV. Chandra images show holes coincident with radio lobes and cold fronts indicating that the core regions are complex. The observational situation is reviewed here and ways in which continued cooling may be hidden are discussed, togther with the implications for any heat source which balances radiative cooling.Comment: To appear in "Lighthouses of the Universe" eds. M. Gilfanov, R. Sunyaev et al., Springer-Verlag; 13 pages, 12 figures