AAS 200th meeting, Albuquerque, NM, June 2002
Session 41. Clusters of Galaxies, Large Scale Structure
Display, Tuesday, June 4, 2002, 10:00am-6:30pm, SW Exhibit Hall

[41.04] Galaxy Cluster Interactions: A Comparison of Simulated and Observed Cooling Core Clusters

P. M. Motl, J. O. Burns (University of Colorado, Boulder), M. L. Norman (University of California, San Diego)

In recent work we have examined 50 high-resolution, adaptive mesh refinement, cosmological simulations of rich galaxy clusters that include the effect of radiative cooling by the baryonic fluid. We are currently producing a catalog'' of simulated clusters that sample a range of mass scales and merger histories. In this presentation we make preliminary comparisons between observed cooling cores clusters (with data available in the \textit{Chandra} public archive) and our simulated systems. Observed features such as cold fronts (contact discontinuities), shocks, cooling bullets'' (infalling subclusters), and complex temperature maps are common in our simulated systems and arise naturally from cluster interactions. We also find the physical state of the cluster gas in our simulations agrees well with the values deduced from \textit{Chandra} observations.