Effects of tidal interactions on the gas flows of elliptical galaxies

Abstract

During a Hubble time, cluster galaxies may undergo several mutual encounters close enough to gravitationally perturb their hot, X-ray emitting gas flows. We ran several 2D, time dependent hydrodynamical models to investigate the effects of such perturbations on the gas flow inside elliptical galaxies. In particular, we studied in detail the modifications occurring in the scenario proposed by D'Ercole et al. (1989), in which the galactic interstellar medium produced by the aging galactic stellar population, is heated by SNIa at a decreasing rate. We find that, although the tidal interaction in our models lasts less than 1 Gyr, its effect extends over several Gyrs. The tidally induced turbulent flows create dense filaments which cool quickly and accrete onto the galactic center, producing large spikes in the global Lx. Once this mechanism starts, it is fed by gravity and amplified by SNIa. In cooling flow models without supernovae the amplitude of the Lx fluctuations due to the tidal interaction is substantially reduced. We conclude that, if SNIa significantly contribute to the energetics of the gas flows in ellipticals, then the observed spread in the Lx-Lb diagram may be caused, at least in part, by this mechanism. On the contrary, tidal interactions cannot be responsible for the observed spread if the pure cooling flow scenario applies (abridged).Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, to be published in ApJ (main journal