The detection of molecular gas in the central galaxies of cooling flow clusters

By A. Edge. 2001

324 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present the detections of CO line emission in the central galaxy of 16 extreme cooling flow clusters using the IRAM 30-m and the JCMT 15-m telescopes. These detections of , , and are consistent with the presence of a substantial mass of warm molecular gas within 50-kpc radius of the central galaxy. We present limits on 13 other galaxies in similarly extreme cooling flow clusters. These results are consistent with the presence of a massive starburst in the central galaxy, which warms a population of cold gas clouds producing both optical and near-infrared emission lines and significant CO line emission. Curiously, our CO detections are restricted to the lower radio power central galaxies. These are the first detections of molecular gas in a cooling flow other than NGC 1275 in the Perseus cluster. As four of our targets have firm limits on their dust mass from SCUBA and the rest have crude limits from IRAS, we can calculate gas-to-dust ratios. Simple analysis indicates that the best secondary indicator of molecular gas is optical line luminosity. We review the implications of these results and the prospects for observations in the near future.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f809a144fb44395b23d994bfbe628747de503984

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. A. C. Fabian
2. P. Nulsen
3. B. McNamara
4. M. Gaspari
5. F. Brighenti
6. L. Hernquist
7. P. Temi
8. J. R. Peterson

In Instrumentation

1. A. C. Fabian
2. M. Gaspari
3. P. Nulsen
4. B. McNamara
5. P. Temi
6. F. Brighenti
7. S. Allen
8. D. Rupke

Citations in the corpus

• Cold molecular gas in the Perseus cluster core - Association with X-ray cavity, Halpha filaments and cooling flow - (2006, methodology): “A strong correlation of Hα with CO, at ∼10-100 K (Edge 2001; Salomé & Combes 2003) has been discovered, which is reinforced by a clear association, both in morphology and dynamics, revealed in the IRAM PdBI CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) maps of Abell 1795.”
• Radiative efficiency, variability and Bondi accretion on to massive black holes: the transition from radio AGN to quasars in brightest cluster galaxies (2012, background): “Edge 2001; Salomé & Combes 2003) we suggest that cold gas fuelling is a likely source of accretion power in these objects.”
• On the Nature of Feedback Heating in Cooling Flow Clusters (2004, background): “(i) In the hot feedback models the optical filaments observed in many CF-clusters (Heckman et al. 1989), and the cooler molecular gas detected via CO observations (Edge 2001; also Edge & Frayer 2003; Salomé & Combes 2003; Salomé & Combes 2004) come from stripping gas from cluster galaxies.”
• LoCuSS: the connection between brightest cluster galaxy activity, gas cooling and dynamical disturbance of X‐ray cluster cores (2009, background): “7-0350) there was no available optical spectrum to determine the emission line status of the BCG. Hα emission is a reliable indicator of the presence of central cold material, second only tdirect detection of molecular gas at sub-mm wavelengths (Edge 2001).”
• CAUSE AND EFFECT OF FEEDBACK: MULTIPHASE GAS IN CLUSTER CORES HEATED BY AGN JETS (2011, background): “This is consistent with molecular cold gas observations (Edge 2001; Salomé et al. 2003), and is reduced by over a factor of 10 compared to the pure cooling flow value.”
• Heating cooling flows with jets (2003, background): “What impact does it have on the evident failure of giant elliptical galaxies to form discs recently (Emsellem et al. 2002), and on the location of the molecular gas that has been found in cooling flows (Donahue et al. 2000; Edge 2001; Edge et al. 2002)?”
• Cold molecular gas in cooling flow clusters of galaxies (2003, methodology): “The molecular gas mass deduced agree with the value derived in Edge (2001).”
• Raining on black holes and massive galaxies: the top-down multiphase condensation model (2016, background): “The observed [C+] velocity dispersions, 100–300 km s−1, are similar to the kinematics of the other phases (Edge 2001; Werner et al. 2009; Canning et al. 2013; Sanders & Fabian 2013; David et al. 2014), corroborating internal condensation over gas stripping from infalling galaxies.”
• Hydrodynamical simulations of cluster formation with central AGN heating (2005, background): “Journal compilation C© 2005 RASDownloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mnras/ rticle-abstract/366/2/397/1213232 by guest on 29 July 2018 Peterson et al. 2001, 2003; Edge 2001; Edge et al. 2002; Edge & Frayer 2003; Böhringer et al. 2002; Salomé & Combes 2004).”
• The relation between accretion rate and jet power in X-ray luminous elliptical galaxies (2006, result): “This is consistent with observations indicating the presence of vigorous star formation and large molecular gas concentrations in the largest cooling flow clusters, but relatively little in less X-ray luminous systems (e.g. McNamara & O’Connell 1992; Allen 1995; Crawford et al. 1999; Edge 2001).”
• Heating Hot Atmospheres with Active Galactic Nuclei (2007, background): “…of cooling at other wavelengths: filaments of Hα emission from warm, ionized gas (Heckman 1981); star formation (Johnstone et al. 1987; McNamara & O’Connell 1989); and pools of cold atomic and molecular gas (Edge 2001) provided support for a classical cooling flow model, albeit at lower rates.”
• High-Resolution X-Ray Spectroscopic Constraints on Cooling-Flow Models for Clusters of Galaxies (2002, background): “However, H i absorption measurements have found no evidence for cold condensed clouds (e.g., O’Dea et al. 1998), and while CO emission has been detected (Edge 2001) the amount of cold molecular material is still a factor of 10 below what is predicted by X-ray cooling estimates.”
• ON THE ORIGIN OF THE EXTENDED Hα FILAMENTS IN COOLING FLOW CLUSTERS (2010, result): “Our measured Hα fluxes (see Table A.1) agree well with those in the literature (e.g., Cowie et al. 1983; Owen et al. 1995; Edge 2001; Jaffe et al. 2005) for the 12 systems with previously published data.”
• Chaotic cold accretion on to black holes (2013, background): “The ubiquitous presence of cold and molecular gas observed in the cores of galaxies, groups, and clusters (e.g. Edge 2001; Mathews & Brighenti 2003; Salomé & Combes 2004; Rafferty et al. 2008; McDonald et al. 2010, 2011b; Davis et al. 2012; Russell et al. 2013; Werner et al. 2013) seems to…”
• Thermal conduction and reduced cooling flows in galaxy clusters (2003, background): “Observations in the UV, optical and infrared suggest that a small cooling flow may be required to fuel the observed star formation rates, emission line nebulosities and molecular gas masses (Donahue 2000; Edge 2001; Edge et al. 2002) in the centres of cooling flow galaxy clusters.”