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S. Heinz (MIT), E. Churazov (MPA), E. Levesque (MIT)
Cooling flow clusters of galaxies require a heat source to offset catastrophic central cooling and produce the observed central temperature structures. AGN jets have long been among the most favorite candidates for this energy source, however, it is not clear how efficiently the energy they release can be transferred to heat the cluster gas, especially since a significant fraction of that energy is initially channelled into sound and weak shock waves. Using hydrodynamic simulations and a technique to extract the rotational component of the velocity field, we show how bubbles of relativistic gas inflated by AGN jets in galaxy clusters act as a catalyst, transforming the energy carried by sound and shock waves to heat. The energy is stored in a vortex field around the bubbles which can subsequently be dissipated. The efficiency of this process is set mainly by the fraction of the cluster volume filled by filaments and bubbles of relativistic plasma
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.