Previous
abstract 
Next
abstract
Session 53 - The X Clusters: Cooling Flows.
Display session, Thursday, January 08
Exhibit Hall,
We present results from an ongoing numerical study of the effect of rotational perturbations on galaxy cluster cooling flow environments. It is believed that such perturbations in the intracluster medium may arise from cluster/subcluster mergers. Our galaxy cluster initial conditions involve spherically-symmetric, steady-state, cooling flows with varying mass-dropout strengths. Previous 2D numerical simulations demonstrated a disruption of the symmetry for each of the initial cooling flows, resulting in the formation of thin, gaseous disk-like structure extending radially out to \sim10 kpc. Disk-like structure formed for low mass-dropout strength simulations appeared to contain cooling condensations whereas disk-like structure in higher mass-dropout strength simulations appears smooth. Presented are our preliminary 3D numerical simulation results. We discuss the effect which relaxing axi-symmetry has on the formation of disk-like structure. In particular, we focus on the development of helical modes of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and their impact on the formation of cooling condensations within the disk-like structure. Morphological comparisons of the disk-like structure formed in our simulations are made to structure observed in the X-ray emitting gas of A4059. Comparisons of the gas dynamics within the disk-like structure are also made to the solid-body rotation profile observed from emission-line gas within the central galaxy of Hydra A. This research was performed at Sandia National Laboratory (Albuquerque, NM).
