Astrolunch - 9th August

Matt Owers :
"Cold Fronts" as Merger Indicators in Clusters of Galaxies

Clusters of galaxies are the largest virialised, gravitationally bound structures in the Universe. They form hierarchically via major cluster-cluster mergers and continuous infall of galaxies, groups, gas etc. Whilst the broad details of hierarchical formation are thought to be fairly well understood, finer details such as how the galaxies and Intra-Cluster Medium evolve during the merging process are not well understood. Studies in this area are also hindered by difficulties in determining whether a cluster is in fact undergoing a merger and distinguishing major mergers from minor. We have used the Chandra X-ray archive to select a sample of "Cold Front" clusters. Cold fronts are thought to be caused by a merger activity. We plan to show this to be true by conducting follow up observations at optical and radio wavelengths to search for further evidence of merger activity. Our long term goal is to study the galaxy evolution in this cold front sample.