The most massive galaxies lie, surrounded by hot gas, at the centres of clusters of galaxies. The gas is kept hot by energy supplied by some of the innermost gas falling onto supermassive black holes in the nuclei of the galaxies. Professor Andrew Fabian will describe how very low-frequency sound waves may be responsible for transporting the energy through the gas.
Professor Andrew Fabian is a Director of Research at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. Past President of the Royal Astronomical Society (2008-2010, Fellow of the Royal Society and Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, currently a member of ESA’s Science Study Team for the Athena Observatory and Science Advisor for the JAXA-NASA XRISM satellite (launch 2022).