Investigating AGN heating in a sample of nearby clusters

Abstract

We analyse those objects in the Brightest 55 sample of clusters of galaxies which have a short central cooling time and a central temperature drop. Such clusters are likely to require some form of heating. Where clear radio bubbles are observed in these clusters, their energy injection is compared to the X-ray cooling rate. Of the 20 clusters requiring heating, at least 14 have clear bubbles, implying a duty cycle for the bubbling activity of at least 70 per cent. The average distance out to which the bubbles can offset the X-ray cooling, rheat, is given by rheat/rcool = 0.86 ± 0.11 where rcool is defined as the radius as which the radiative cooling time is 3 Gyr. 10 out of 16 clusters have r heat/rcool ≳ 1, but there is a large range in values. The clusters which require heating but show no clear bubbles were combined with those clusters which have a radio core to form a second subsample. Using r heat = 0.86rcool we calculate the size of an average bubble expected in these clusters. In five cases (3C129.1, A2063, A2204, A3112 and A3391) the radio morphology is bi-lobed and its extent similar to the expected bubble sizes. A comparison between the actual bubble size and the maximum expected if they were to offset the X-ray cooling exactly, R max, shows a peak at Rbubble ∼ 0.7Rmax with a tail extending to larger Abubble/Rmax. The offset from the expected value of Rbubble ∼ Rmax may indicate the presence of a non-thermal component in the innermost intracluster medium of most clusters, with a pressure comparable to the thermal pressure. © 2006 RAS.