Hidden Cooling Flows in Clusters of Galaxies III: Accretion onto the Central Black Hole

A. C. Fabian, J. S. Sanders, G. J. Ferland, B. R. McNamara, C. Pinto, S. A. Walker

Published 2023-06-19Version 1

Recently, we have uncovered Hidden Cooling Flows (HCF) in the X-ray spectra of the central Brightest Galaxies of 11 clusters, 1 group and 2 elliptical galaxies. Here we report such flows in a further 15 objects, consisting of 8 clusters, 3 groups, 3 ellipticals and 1 Red Nugget. The mass cooling rates are about 1 Msun/yr in the ellipticals, 2 to 20 Msun/yr in the groups and 20 to 100 Msun/yr in regular clusters. The Red Nugget, MRK1216, has an HCF of 10 Msun/yr. We review the fate of the cooled gas and investigate how some of it might accrete onto the central black hole. The gas is likely to be very cold and to have fragmented into low mass stars and smaller objects before being swallowed whole, with little luminous output. If such a scenario is correct and operates at a few Msun/yr then such objects may host the fastest growing black holes in the low redshift Universe. We briefly discuss the relevance of HCF to the growth of early galaxies and black holes.