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Alastair Edge

   I am a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Extragalactic Astronomy group of the Department of Physics at Durham University. My research concentrates on clusters of galaxies from an X-ray prespective. Selecting clusters on the basis of their X-ray luminosity ensures that the objects are massive and well-relaxed. In many cases these clusters are relatively dense in their cores and the resulting strong X-ray emission causes all the thermal energy of the gas to be radiated away. This phenonemon is termed a "Cooling Flow". The clear and unescapable conclusion from the X-ray observations is that there is a substantial mass of gas that has cooled but relatively little of this 'sink' has been found.

HST STUDY OF CENTRAL CLUSTER GALAXIES

   A (very) false-color Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 image of the central galaxy in A2261. This central galaxy is highly unusual in having a low surface brightness core but several high surface brightness nuclei. The central galaxy shows no optical emission lines but lies in the core of a strong cooling flow. This image was obtained as part of a HST SNAPSHOT program to determine the detailed optical mophology of a complete sample of high optical line luminosity systems and a control sample of optically dull central galaxies (see HST Programs 8301 and 8719). In total 52 snapshots have been taken and they can be found in my ftp area.

MOLECULAR GAS IN COOLING FLOWS

   Recent results have found that the cores of clusters have considerable masses of molecular gas and dust present. Work on IRAM and JCMT by myself has lead to the discovery of 17 central cluster galaxies with CO(1-0) detections (click on icon for A1068). These CO line detections imply 10^9--11.5 Msun of molecular gas at temperatures of 20-50K. We have also found a large number of similar galaxies with strong H2 vibration-rotation lines in the near-infrared from UKIRT observations. These observations indicate that there is an underlying correlation between the ionised gas (Balmer lines) and molecular gas (H2 and CO). This is a rapidly expanding area so stand by for further information....!

ROSAT ALL-SKY SURVEY

   Much of my work has been based on data from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey. From work with Harald Ebeling and Pat Henry (IfA, Hawaii), we have found a large sample (>110) distant (z>0.3) clusters from this sample (the MACS sample).

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Last Modified: October 16th 2002. [Netscape 4.5]

This page owes a great deal to the efforts of Ian Smail whose home page I have ruthlessly ripped off ( look for yourself!).

Alastair Edge, Alastair.Edge@durham.ac.uk
Department of Physics, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE
Tel: +44-191-334-3792 / FAX: +44-191-334-3645