The XMAGNET exascale simulations of magnetized turbulence driven by supermassive black hole feedback in galaxy clusters

ORAL

Abstract

Galaxy clusters are the most massive virialized objects in the universe, with masses hundreds to thousands of times that of our own Milky Way and physical scales extending for megaparsecs. The bulk of the baryons contained within these systems is comprised of a hot, diffuse, and magnetized plasma that glows brightly in X-ray wavelengths. The energy radiated away by X-rays is replaced by heating from active galactic nuclei, which are relativistic jets powered by accretion onto the supermassive black hole in the cluster's central galaxy, maintaining the system in a dynamic equilibrium. This heating occurs through interactions of the AGN jet with the intracluster medium, which ultimately is transported throughout the highly X-ray luminous cluster core. In this presentation I will present results from the XMAGNET exascale magnetohydrodynamics simulations of idealized galaxy clusters with a cold gas accretion-fed, magnetized AGN jet in the center. I will explain the mechanisms by which cold gas triggers the AGN jet, and how the heating from this jet regulates the amount of cold gas in the system. I will also discuss in detail the generation of turbulence by the magnetized jet, the amplification of the ambient cluster magnetic fields by turbulence-driven dynamos, and the formation of multiphase gas (which is created via thermal instability) and its relationship with the cluster magnetic fields.

Publication: "The XMAGNET Exascale MHD Simulations of SMBH Feedback in Galaxy Groups and Clusters: Overview and Preliminary Cluster Results", P. Grete et al. 2025, The Astrophysical Journal, 988, 155 (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025ApJ...988..155G/abstract)

"XMAGNET: Velocity structure functions of active galactic nucleus-driven turbulence in the multiphase intracluster medium", M. Fournier et al. 2025, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 698, id.A121

"XMAGNET: Exascale MHD simulations of AGN-driven turbulence in an idealized cluster environment" (working title), P. Grete et al. 2025, in preparation for submission to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

"XMAGNET: Exascale MHD simulations of SMBH Feedback over a Range of Cluster Masses" (working title). B.W. O'Shea et al. 2025, in preparation for submission to The Astrophysical Journal

Presenters

  • Brian W O'Shea

    Michigan State University

Authors

  • Brian W O'Shea

    Michigan State University

  • Philipp Grete

    Hamburg University

  • Forrest Glines

    Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)

  • Mark Voit

    Michigan State University

  • Martin Fournier

    University of Hamburg

  • Marcus Brüggen

    University of Hamburg

  • Deovrat Prasad

    Cardiff University

  • Benjamin Wibking

    Michigan State University