The Stormy Life of Galaxy Clusters: astro version

Abstract

Galaxy clusters form from the infall of dark and baryonic matter at the intersection of cosmic filaments. Most of the baryons are in the form of a hot, magnetized, intracluster plasma detected through its X-ray thermal bremsstrahlung emission. This plasma is tightly coupled to a second, cosmic ray plasma, detected through its synchrotron radio emission. Together, the properties of these plasmas encode the history of the cluster's formation and provide a snapshot of the ongoing cluster evolution. This article provides an overview for the more general astrophysical and space plasma community of the dynamical processes revealed by the diffuse plasma emissions.