Lecturer: Mr. Nir Mandelker
Affiliation: Racah Institute of Physics,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Abstract:
Massive galaxies in the early Universe are
predicted to be fed by cold streams of gas
from the cosmic web. These streams
penetrate supersonically through the hot
circumgalactic medium encompassed by a
stable shock at the virial radius of the dark-
matter halo. Our long-term goal is to explore
the heating and dissipation rate of the
streams, as well as their fragmentation and
possible breakup, in order to understand
how a significant fraction of the inflow can
feed the galaxy growth and high star-
formation rate. I present here the first step,
where I analyze the linear Kelvin-Helmholtz
instability (KHI) of a cold, dense stream
flowing through a hot, dilute medium in the
transonic regime, both analytically and using
idealized simulations.