The Fate of Intracluster Radio Plasma

Abstract

Radio plasma injected by active radio galaxies into clusters of galaxies quickly becomes invisible due to radiative losses of the relativistic electrons. In this talk, the fate of radio plasma and its role for the galaxy cluster is discussed: buoyancy removes it from the central regions and allows to transfer its energy into the ambient gas. The remaining low energy electron populations are still able to emit a low luminosity glow of observable radiation via synchrotron-self Comptonized emission. Shock waves in the ambient gas can re-ignite the radio emission.