Dept Colloquium: Irina Zhuravleva, University of Chicago

Unveiling Hot Gas Kinematics in Galaxy Clusters with XRISM: Stormy Weather, Multiple Cascades, and Calm Outskirts

Speaker: Irina Zhuravleva, University of Chicago

Abstract: The recent launch of the XRISM observatory has opened a new era in high-energy astrophysics, providing high-resolution X-ray spectra of various X-ray sources, including the long-awaited spectra of extended X-ray sources like clusters of galaxies. Direct measurements of hot gas kinematics are now possible, providing crucial insights into energy circulation in supermassive black hole feedback and cluster mergers - key processes affecting the evolution of galaxies and large-scale structure. In this talk, I will present XRISM results from observations of well-known bright galaxy clusters. I will discuss gas kinematics near the central supermassive black hole in the Virgo cluster, multiple velocity cascades in the core of the Perseus cluster strongly affected by AGN feedback, the “stormy weather” of the Coma cluster and its unusual velocity power spectrum despite being considered a textbook example of ICM turbulence, gas kinematic studies in a relaxed cluster A2029 out to cosmologically interesting radii, along with other exciting findings.

Host: Dr. Massimo Ricotti