Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 688, Issue 2, Pages 905-917Publisher
UNIV CHICAGO PRESS
DOI: 10.1086/592380
Keywords
convection; galaxies: clusters: general; instabilities; MHD; plasmas; X-rays: galaxies: clusters
Categories
Funding
- NASA through the Chandra Post-doctoral Fellowship [PF7-80049]
- Chandra X-Ray Center
- Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for NASA [NAS8-03060]
- Department of Energy Computational Science
- DOE [DE-FG52-06NA26217]
- National Science Foundation through TeraGrid
- National Center for Atmospheric Research
- Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
- Princeton University
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The electron mean free path in the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters is much larger than the gyroradius; thus, heat is transported anisotropically along magnetic field lines. We show that the intracluster medium is unstable to the magnetothermal instability (MTI) where the temperature declines with radius using MHD simulations with anisotropic thermal conduction. As a result of the MTI, we find that the temperature profile of the ICM can be substantially modified on timescales of several billion years, while the magnetic field is amplified by dynamo action up to more than 50 times the original energy. We also show that the instability drives field lines to become preferentially radial, leading to conduction that is a highly efficient fraction of the Spitzer conductivity.
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