The effect of Braginskii viscosity on mixing in the Intracluster Medium

Tirso Marin Gilabert

Abstract

The impact of viscosity on the Intracluster Medium (ICM) is still under debate and it can be essential in mixing and turbulence processes and, therefore, the interaction of galaxies within galaxy clusters and the evolution of galaxies. In this work we carry out simulations of the Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability (KHI) using our Gadget-3 code, first testing the differences between SPH and MFM and finding that the results with SPH are highly dependent on the number of neighbours employed. Also, we included a Braginskii viscosity in our simulations with SPH to see its effect in the development of the KHI. Our results show that the more viscous the system is, the more the instability is suppressed, finding a viscosity threshold above which the instability is fully suppressed. These results can be useful when studying the viscosity of the ICM, specially by analysing the behaviour of Cold Fronts.