Shocks and cold fronts in galaxy clusters

The currently operating X-ray imaging observatories provide us with an exquisitely detailed view of the Megaparsec-scale plasma atmospheres in nearby galaxy clusters. At z<0.05$z<0.05$, the Chandra  's 1^″$1^{″}$ angular resolution corresponds to linear resolution of less than a kiloparsec, which is smaller than some interesting linear scales in the intracluster plasma. This enables us to study the previously unseen hydrodynamic phenomena in clusters: classic bow shocks driven by the infalling subclusters, and the unanticipated “cold fronts,” or sharp contact discontinuities between regions of gas with different entropies. The ubiquitous cold fronts are found in mergers as well as around the central density peaks in “relaxed” clusters. They are caused by motion of cool, dense gas clouds in the ambient higher-entropy gas. These clouds are either remnants of the infalling subclusters, or the displaced gas from the cluster's own cool cores.