Cosmological MHD simulations of cluster formation with anisotropic thermal conduction

TL;DR

This study presents cosmological MHD simulations of galaxy cluster formation incorporating magnetic fields, radiative cooling, and anisotropic thermal conduction, revealing insights into magnetic field amplification and the effects of thermal conduction on cluster dynamics.

Contribution

First cosmological simulations including magnetic fields, radiative cooling, and anisotropic thermal conduction, analyzing their combined effects on cluster magnetic field amplification and structure.

Findings

Magnetic fields are amplified by about 10^6 times due to cooling and conduction effects.

Radial bias in magnetic and velocity fields is observed, consistent with inhomogeneous gas flows or residual MTI effects.

Radiative cooling significantly enhances magnetic field amplification, especially in regions with shallow temperature gradients.

Abstract

(abridged) The ICM has been suggested to be buoyantly unstable in the presence of magnetic field and anisotropic thermal conduction. We perform first cosmological simulations of galaxy cluster formation that simultaneously include magnetic fields, radiative cooling and anisotropic thermal conduction. In isolated and idealized cluster models, the magnetothermal instability (MTI) tends to reorient the magnetic fields radially. Using cosmological simulations of the Santa Barbara cluster we detect radial bias in the velocity and magnetic fields. Such radial bias is consistent with either the inhomogeneous radial gas flows due to substructures or residual MTI-driven field rearangements that are expected even in the presence of turbulence. Although disentangling the two scenarios is challenging, we do not detect excess bias in the runs that include anisotropic thermal conduction. The anisotropy effect is potentially detectable via radio polarization measurements with LOFAR and SKA and future X-ray spectroscopic studies with the IXO. We demonstrate that radiative cooling boosts the amplification of the magnetic field by about two orders of magnitude beyond what is expected in the non-radiative cases. At z=0 the field is amplified by a factor of about 10^6 compared to the uniform magnetic field evolved due to the universal expansion alone. Interestingly, the runs that include both radiative cooling and anisotropic thermal conduction exhibit stronger magnetic field amplification than purely radiative runs at the off-center locations. In these runs, shallow temperature gradients away from the cluster center make the ICM neutrally buoyant. The ICM is more easily mixed in these regions and the winding up of the frozen-in magnetic field is more efficient resulting in stronger magnetic field amplification.