Turbulent Heating in Galaxy Clusters Brightest in X-rays

Understand

The hot, X-ray-emitting intracluster medium (ICM) is the dominant baryonic constituent of clusters of galaxies.

• In the cores of many clusters, radiative energy losses from the ICM occur on timescales significantly shorter than the age of the system.
• Unchecked, this cooling would lead to massive accumulations of cold gas and vigorous star formation, in contradiction to observations.
• Various sources of energy capable of compensating these cooling losses have been proposed, the most promising being heating by the supermassive black holes in the central galaxies through inflation of bubbles of relativistic plasma.