Radio halos, cluster mergers, and cooling flows

Peter C. Tribble

Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA

Accepted 1992 December 23. Received 1992 December 2; in original form 1992 August 10.

Abstract

Radio halos are rarely found in galaxy clusters with cooling flows, and those that are are rather different from the canonical halos such as that in the Coma cluster. I propose that the big cluster radio halos are transient, being formed in large cluster mergers and then fading. The small halos in cooling flows are a result of magnetic field compression and reacceleration of old relativistic electrons by the cooling flow.

Key words: acceleration of particles - magnetic fields - cooling flows - radio continuum: general

Contents:

Introduction
Cluster mergers and Radio haloes
Fields and particles in cooling flows
Simulated cooling flow models
Conclusions

This article appeared in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol 263, pp. 31-36 (1993). Copyright Royal Astronomical Society.
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Peter Tribble, peter.tribble@gmail.com