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Radiation from gas within rich clusters of galaxies may regulate the central gas density to that value at which the cooling time equals the lifetime of the system, since at higher densities mass deposition by cooling in the central regions would exceed mass injection from the member galaxies and mass inflow from the outer regions of the cluster. We argue that in X-ray clusters a steady inflow of material takes place, in which the gravitational energy of the accreting material powers the X-ray luminosity of the source and accounts for the observed spatial extent of the gas distribution. In the present paper we consider self-contained gas flows, in which mass ejected by galaxies in the outer regions of the cluster flows toward the core of the cluster and ultimately accretes onto the central galaxies. This model, which depends only on a single parameter measuring the ratio of the mass-injection rate to the cooling in the central regions, accounts for the observed X-ray luminosities of the clusters, the surface-brightness profiles, and energy spectra in terms of thermal bremsstrahlung emission from the gas. We briefly argue that thermal conduction does not affect the observed properties of the source. We discuss the expected equivalent widths of observable emission lines, the morphology of the X-ray emission from the Perseus cluster, the formation of cD and active galaxies, and extinction and scattering by dust within the cluster. Subject headings: galaxies: clusters of - galaxies: intergalactic medium - X-rays: sources
Cowie et al. (Mon,) studied this question.