AGN Jets in Galaxy Clusters

Introduction
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are among the most energetic objects in the Universe. AGN are believed to be powered by accretion of matter onto a super massive (10⁹-10¹⁰M_sun) blackhole that resides at the center of a host galaxy. Through the accretion process, extremely high velocity jets are produced launching a low density plasma far out into the surrounding intracluster medium (ICM). The jets also contain relativistic particles (cosmic rays) that orbit the magnetic field carried with the jet plasma.

Our simulations
Our work focuses on the interaction between the jets and the surrounding ICM. We investigate the dependence on jet history, such as intermittency, on the morphology of the cloud of jet plasma. In our simulations we also include the acceleration of and losses from cosmic rays. Including these particles, along with the thermal properties of the jet and ICM plasmas, allows us to calculate the emission that observers would see from our simulations. Our latest calculations are performed in full 3D with our new MHD TVD implementation for massive scaling, WOMBAT.