Speaker: Mateusz Ruszkowski, University of Michigan
Abstract: A significant fraction of clusters of galaxies possess cool cores. If uninhibited, the cooling of the intracluster medium (ICM) will result in extreme mass accretion rates which is contrary to observations. It is widely accepted now that active galactic nuclei (AGN), and possibly other processes, "conspire" to heat the cluster plasma and prevent such "cooling catastrophes". However, several aspects of this process are not understood. I will discuss some of the outstanding problems of the energetics of cool cores in clusters of galaxies. More specifically, I will discuss (1) the role of the brightest cluster galaxy and the mass of its central black hole in supplying the energy, (2) the impact of the energy transfer by thermal conduction, (3) the role of the magnetic fields in slowing the mixing of the hot AGN-inflated bubbles with the ICM and, finally, (4) I will briefly comment on our ongoing efforts to understand the role of anisotropic conduction in cosmological simulations of cluster formation. <br>