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Article Contents

ABSTRACT

1.INTRODUCTION

2.CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES

3.PHYSICS OF THE INTRACLUSTER MEDIUM

3.1.X-ray Emission from Collisional Plasmas

3.2.Magneto-hydrodynamics

3.3.Cooling flows

4.X-RAY INSTRUMENTATION AND OBSERVATIONAL TECHNIQUES

4.1.X-ray Telescopes and their Relevance to Clusters

4.2.Analysis Techniques

5.X-RAY SPECTRA OF COOLING CLUSTERS

5.1.Early Work on Imaging Observations

5.2.Early Work on Low Resolution Spectroscopy

5.3.Focal Plane Crystal Spectrometer

5.4.Reflection Grating Spectrometer Observations

5.5.Recent Spatially-resolved Spectro-photometric Observations

5.6.Observations of Cataclysmic Variables

5.7.Definition of the Cooling Flow Problem

6.ARE COOLING FLOWS RULED OUT?

6.1.Cooled gas and star formation

7.HEATING

7.1.Heat conduction

7.2.Heating by a central radio source

7.3.Is the ICM turbulent?

7.4.Multiphase flows

7.5.Role of Magnetic Fields and Cosmic Rays

7.6.Feedback

7.7.Other heat sources and mechanisms