Implications of the mild gas motion found with Hitomi in the core of the Perseus cluster

Abstract

Based mainly on X-ray observations, we study the interactions between the intracluster medium (ICM) in clusters of galaxies and their member galaxies. Through (magneto)hydrodynamic and gravitational channels, moving galaxies are expected to drag the ICM around them, and then transfer some fraction of their dynamical energies on cosmological timescales to the ICM. This hypothesis is in line with several observations, including the possible cosmological infall of galaxies toward the cluster center, found over redshifts of z ∼ 1 to z ∼ 0. Further assuming that the energy lost by these galaxies is first converted into ICM turbulence and then dissipated, this picture can explain the subsonic and uniform ICM turbulence, measured with Hitomi in the core region of the Perseus cluster. The scenario may also explain several other unanswered problems regarding clusters of galaxies, such as what prevents the ICM from underoing the expected radiative cooling, how the various mass components in nearby clusters have attained different radial distributions, and how a thermal stability is realized between hot and cool ICM components that co-exist around cD galaxies. This view is also considered to pertain to the general scenario of galaxy evolution, including their environmental effects.