Thermal conduction in clusters of galaxies

Oct, 2001
4 pages
Published in:
  • Astrophys.J.Lett. 562 (2001) L129-L132
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Abstract: (arXiv)
We estimate the thermal conductivity of a weakly collisional magnetized plasma with chaotic magnetic field fluctuations. When the fluctuation spectrum extends over two or more decades in wave-vector, we find that thermal conduction is very efficient: the conduction coefficient is only a factor ~5 below the classical Spitzer estimate. We suggest that conduction could play a significant role in cooling flows in clusters of galaxies.