Physics Commons^™

Collisional Heating As The Origin Of Filament Emission In Galaxy Clusters, G. J. Ferland, A. C. Fabian, N. A. Hatch, R. M. Johnstone, R. L. Porter, P. A. M. Vanhoof, R. J. R. Williams

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

It has long been known that photoionization, whether by starlight or other sources, has difficulty in accounting for the observed spectra of the optical filaments that often surround central galaxies in large clusters. This paper builds on the first of this series in which we examined whether heating by energetic particles or dissipative magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave can account for the observations. The first paper focused on the molecular regions which produce strong H₂ and CO lines. Here we extend the calculations to include atomic and low-ionization regions. Two major improvements to the previous calculations have been made. The model …