Schedule Mar 15, 2011
A Thermally Stable Magnetized Intracluster Medium: From Microphysics to Global Profiles
Alex Schekochihin (Univ. Oxford)

I will discuss a direct link between plasma microphysics in the ICM (instabilities driven by pressure anisotropies) and global dynamics: by keeping the pressure anisotropy at the marginally stable levels, the microphysical instabilities set the effective viscosity of the ICM and, therefore, the heating rate. It turns out that the resulting mechanism of transferring turbulent energy into heat leads to a thermally stable situation --- there is no cooling catastrophe. This conclusion depends on a number of caveats and assumptions, in particular the availability of sufficient turbulent energy and certain properties of the underlying microphysics (inefficient particle scattering). I will discuss these on an elementary qualitative level. A byproduct of these results is a prediction for the relationship between the rms magnetic field in the ICM and density and temperature (B ~ n^(1/2) T^(3/4)) and an ability to predict radial profiles of the magnetic field, rms turbulent velocity and the turbulent diffusivity, given observed density and temperature profiles. Further information can be obtained from arXiv:1003.2719.

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