Modeling the Supermassive Black Hole Driven Shocks in M87
William Forman (SAO) , C. Jones (SAO), E. Churazov (MPA, IKI), R. Kraft (SAO), M. Markevitch (SAO), P.Nulsen (SAO), J.Eilek (NMT), F. Owen (NRAO)
We have modeled the shocks detected in the 500ksec Chandra observation of M87 using a hydrodynamic model of the gas surrounding M87. Starting from a description of the unperturbed gas density and gas temperature distributions derived from deprojections, we parameterize the outbursts that produce the observed shocks. For the observed shocks, we derive the outburst energy, the outburst age, and the duration of the outburst. For the outburst that gave rise to the main 13kpc ring, we constrain the duration of the outburst to more than a few million years. Finally, with a simple model for the main outburst, we can estimate the fraction of energy deposited in M87's atmosphere and the fraction that is carried away by the weak shock. We show that the deposited energy is comparable to that radiated by M87's cooling atmosphere.