Open AccessSimulation of radio plasma in clusters of galaxies
Author(s) -
Brüggen M.,
Kaiser C. R.,
Churazov E.,
Enßlin T. A.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.05233.x
Subject(s) - physics , intracluster medium , astrophysics , cluster (spacecraft) , galaxy cluster , plasma , cooling flow , magnetic field , galaxy , bubble , computational physics , mechanics , nuclear physics , quantum mechanics , computer science , programming language
We present three‐dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of buoyant gas in a typical cluster environment. In these simulations, hot matter was injected continuously into a small region offset from the cluster centre. In agreement with previous analytic estimates, we found that the bubbles evolve very differently depending on the rate of energy injection. Using tracer particles we computed the efficiency of the bubbles to stir the intracluster medium (ICM) and find that recurrent low‐power sources are more effective in mixing the inner cluster region than rarer large outbursts. Moreover, we computed radio maps of the bubbles based on different assumptions about the magnetic field. In the radio band the bubbles closely resemble FR I sources. For the bubbles to be detectable for long enough to account for FR I sources, we found that reacceleration has to take place. The bubbles are generally difficult to detect, both in the radio and in the X‐ray band. Thus it is possible to hide a significant amount of energy in the form of bubbles in clusters.