Cooling Flows in Clusters of Galaxies

Abstract

The cooling time in the dense gas within 50 – 300 kpc of the central galaxy in most clusters is found from X-ray images to be less than about 1010 yr. The weight of the overlying gas then causes a net inflow which is called a cooling flow. X-ray spectra confirm that the gas is cooling and loses at least 90 per cent of its thermal energy. The rate at which the gas cools ranges from ~ 10 – 500 M⊙ yr−1 . The soft X-ray absorption now discovered in cooling flows suggests that the cooled gas accumulates as very cold, small, gas clouds. Any large-scale star formation must be biased to low mass objects, except in the centres of some flows where some massive star may form, possibly from larger clouds assembled from cloud collisions and aggregation.