Identifying heating processes in simulations with an entropy-based scheme: A single jet episode in a galaxy cluster
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Understanding heating processes in galaxy clusters is essential for predicting the regulation of radiative cooling and star formation and for clarifying the mechanisms underlying active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback in cool-core clusters. We investigated the processes through which AGN jets deposit heat into the intracluster medium (ICM) by tracking passive entropy scalars in magnetohydrodynamic simulations. This allowed us to systematically disentangle the contributions from different heating channels. We successfully validated this method with several idealized tests, including turbulent heating, heating by anisotropic Braginskii viscosity, dissipative and adiabatic heating by shocks using in situ shock-detection methods, as well as cosmic-ray heating through the excitations and damping of Alfvén waves. Using this methodology, we simulated single-epoch outbursts of high-power jets with varying densities in a cluster environment. Light jets produce wider bubbles, displacing a larger fraction of the gas in the cluster's core, whereas comparatively denser jets propagate more efficiently to larger distances without significantly disturbing the central region. During early evolution, shock heating of the ICM prevails irrespective of jet density. At later times, light jets primarily heat the ICM through turbulently induced heating (which includes dissipation of vortices emerging from a turbulent cascade and mixing gas of different temperatures) and compressible dissipation of sound waves and very weak shocks, while denser jets continue to dissipate most of their energy via shocks. Particularly, turbulently induced heating by solenoidal-shear motions prevails inside the cocoon, whereas shocks and acoustic compressions dominate outside. In light jets, the forward shock weakens rapidly, whereas dense jets can sustain strong bow shocks to large distances. This heating estimator allows us to identify the dominant heating mechanism responsible for resolving the cooling flow problem in future self-regulated AGN jet simulations.
Source: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Authors: M. Meenakshi, R. Weinberger, C. Pfrommer, T. Berlok
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,865
OpenAlex ID: W7148178240