Shocks and cold fronts in merging and massive galaxy clusters: new detections with Chandra

Understand

A number of merging galaxy clusters shows the presence of shocks and cold fronts, i.e.

• sharp discontinuities in surface brightness and temperature.
• The observation of these features requires an X-ray telescope with high spatial resolution like Chandra, and allows to study important aspects concerning the physics of the intra-cluster medium (ICM), such as its thermal conduction and viscosity, as well as to provide information on the physical conditions leading to the acceleration of cosmic rays and magnetic field amplification in the cluster environment.
• In this work we search for new discontinuities in 15 merging and massive clusters observed with Chandra by using different imaging and spectral techniques of X-ray observations.