Soft X-Ray and Extreme Ultraviolet Excess Emission from Clusters of Galaxies

An excess over the extrapolation to the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray ranges of the thermal emission from the hot intracluster medium has been detected in a number of clusters of galaxies. We briefly present each of the satellites (EUVE, ROSAT PSPC and BeppoSAX, and presently XMM-Newton, Chandra and Suzaku) and their corresponding instrumental issues, which are responsible for the fact that this soft excess remains controversial in a number of cases. We then review the evidence for this soft X-ray excess and discuss the possible mechanisms (thermal and non-thermal) which could be responsible for this emission.     

Particle Acceleration Mechanisms

In this paper we review the possible mechanisms for production of non-thermal electrons which are responsible for the observed non-thermal radiation in clusters of galaxies. Our primary focus is on non-thermal Bremsstrahlung and inverse Compton scattering, that produce hard X-ray emission. We first give a brief review of acceleration mechanisms and point out that in most astrophysical situations, and in particular for the intracluster medium, shocks, turbulence and plasma waves play a crucial role. We also outline how the effects of the turbulence can be accounted for. Using a generic model for turbulence and acceleration, we then consider two scenarios for production of non-thermal radiation. The first is motivated by the possibility that hard X-ray emission is due to non-thermal Bremsstrahlung by nonrelativistic particles and attempts to produce non-thermal tails by accelerating the electrons from the background plasma with an initial Maxwellian distribution. For acceleration rates smaller than the Coulomb energy loss rate, the effect of energising the plasma is to primarily heat the plasma with little sign of a distinct non-thermal tail. Such tails are discernible only for acceleration rates comparable or larger than the Coulomb loss rate. However, these tails are accompanied by significant heating and they are present for a short time of <10⁶ years, which is also the time that the tail will be thermalised. A longer period of acceleration at such rates will result in a runaway situation with most particles being accelerated to very high energies. These more exact treatments confirm the difficulty with this model, first pointed out by Petrosian (Astrophys. J. 557:560, 2001). Such non-thermal tails, even if possible, can only explain the hard X-ray but not the radio emission which needs GeV or higher energy electrons. For these and for production of hard X-rays by the inverse Compton model, we need the second scenario where there is injection and subsequent acceleration of relativistic electrons. It is shown that a steady state situation, for example arising from secondary electrons produced from cosmic ray proton scattering by background protons, will most likely lead to flatter than required electron spectra or it requires a short escape time of the electrons from the cluster. An episodic injection of relativistic electrons, presumably from galaxies or AGN, and/or episodic generation of turbulence and shocks by mergers can result in an electron spectrum consistent with observations but for only a short period of less than one billion years.     

Non-Thermal Processes in Cosmological Simulations

Non-thermal components are key ingredients for understanding clusters of galaxies. In the hierarchical model of structure formation, shocks and large-scale turbulence are unavoidable in the cluster formation processes. Understanding the amplification and evolution of the magnetic field in galaxy clusters is necessary for modelling both the heat transport and the dissipative processes in the hot intra-cluster plasma. The acceleration, transport and interactions of non-thermal energetic particles are essential for modelling the observed emissions. Therefore, the inclusion of the non-thermal components will be mandatory for simulating accurately the global dynamical processes in clusters. In this review, we summarise the results obtained with the simulations of the formation of galaxy clusters which address the issues of shocks, magnetic field, cosmic ray particles and turbulence.     

A cost driven predictive maintenance policy for structural airframe maintenance

Airframe maintenance is traditionally performed at scheduled maintenance stops.The decision to repair a fuselage panel is based on a fixed crack size threshold,which allows to ensure the aircraft safety until the next scheduled maintenance stop.With progress in sensor technology and data processing techniques,structural health monitoring (SHM) systems are increasingly being considered in the aviation industry.SHM systems track the aircraft health state continuously,lead ing to the possibility of planning maintenance based on an actual state of aircraft rather than on a fixed schedule.This paper builds upon a model-based prognostics framework that the authors developed in their previous work,which couples the Extended Kalman filter (EKF) with a first order perturbation (FOP) method.By using the information given by this prognostics method,a novel cost driven predictive maintenance (CDPM) policy is proposed,which ensures the aircraft safety while minimizing the maintenance cost.The proposed policy is formally derived based on the trade-off between probabilities of occurrence of scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.A numerical case study simulating the maintenance process of an entire fleet of aircrafts is imple mented.Under the condition of assuring the same safety level,the CDPM is compared in terms of cost with two other maintenance policies:scheduled maintenance and threshold based SHM maintenance.The comparison results show CDPM could lead to significant cost savings.     

Boundary discontinuous Fourier analysis of thick beams with clamped and simply supported edges via CUF

This paper presents an analytical solution for static analysis of thick rectangular beams with different boundary conditions.Carrera's Unified Formulation (CUF) is used in order to consider shear deformation theories of arbitrary order.The novelty of the present work is that a boundary discontinuous Fourier approach is used to consider clamped boundary conditions in the analytical solution,unlike Navier-type solutions which are restricted to simply supported beams.Governing equations are obtained by employing the principle of virtual work.The numerical accuracy of results is ascertained by studying the convergence of the solution and comparing the results to those of a 3D finite element solution.Beams subjected to bending due to a uniform pressure load and subjected to torsion due to opposite linear forces are considered.Overall,accurate results close to those of 3D finite element solutions are obtained,which can be used to validate finite element results or other approximate methods.     

Numerical scheme of the second order of accuracy for vortex methods for incompressible flow simulation around airfoils

A high-accuracy numerical scheme is proposed for vortex methods of flow simulation around airfoils of arbitrary shape including airfoils with sharp edges, because it does not require the solution continuity on the airfoil.     

High-Energy Electron Beam Relaxation in a Stationary Plasma Thruster

In the paper, processes of high-energy electron beam interaction with plasma particles in a discharge channel of a stationary plasma thruster are analyzed and the results are presented.     

Grain Surface Models and Data for Astrochemistry

The cross-disciplinary field of astrochemistry exists to understand the formation, destruction, and survival of molecules in astrophysical environments. Molecules in space are synthesized via a large variety of gas-phase reactions, and reactions on dust-grain surfaces, where the surface acts as a catalyst. A broad consensus has been reached in the astrochemistry community on how to suitably treat gas-phase processes in models, and also on how to present the necessary reaction data in databases; however, no such consensus has yet been reached for grain-surface processes. A team of \({\sim}25\) experts covering observational, laboratory and theoretical (astro)chemistry met in summer of 2014 at the Lorentz Center in Leiden with the aim to provide solutions for this problem and to review the current state-of-the-art of grain surface models, both in terms of technical implementation into models as well as the most up-to-date information available from experiments and chemical computations. This review builds on the results of this workshop and gives an outlook for future directions.     

The Far Ultra-Violet Imager on the Icon Mission

ICON Far UltraViolet (FUV) imager contributes to the ICON science objectives by providing remote sensing measurements of the daytime and nighttime atmosphere/ionosphere. During sunlit atmospheric conditions, ICON FUV images the limb altitude profile in the shortwave (SW) band at 135.6 nm and the longwave (LW) band at 157 nm perpendicular to the satellite motion to retrieve the atmospheric O/N₂ ratio. In conditions of atmospheric darkness, ICON FUV measures the 135.6 nm recombination emission of \(\mathrm{O}^{+}\) ions used to compute the nighttime ionospheric altitude distribution. ICON Far UltraViolet (FUV) imager is a Czerny–Turner design Spectrographic Imager with two exit slits and corresponding back imager cameras that produce two independent images in separate wavelength bands on two detectors. All observations will be processed as limb altitude profiles. In addition, the ionospheric 135.6 nm data will be processed as longitude and latitude spatial maps to obtain images of ion distributions around regions of equatorial spread F. The ICON FUV optic axis is pointed 20 degrees below local horizontal and has a steering mirror that allows the field of view to be steered up to 30 degrees forward and aft, to keep the local magnetic meridian in the field of view. The detectors are micro channel plate (MCP) intensified FUV tubes with the phosphor fiber-optically coupled to Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs). The dual stack MCP-s amplify the photoelectron signals to overcome the CCD noise and the rapidly scanned frames are co-added to digitally create 12-second integrated images. Digital on-board signal processing is used to compensate for geometric distortion and satellite motion and to achieve data compression. The instrument was originally aligned in visible light by using a special grating and visible cameras. Final alignment, functional and environmental testing and calibration were performed in a large vacuum chamber with a UV source. The test and calibration program showed that ICON FUV meets its design requirements and is ready to be launched on the ICON spacecraft.