Nearby spiral galaxies M101 and M81 are considered to have undergone a galaxy-galaxy interaction. M101 has experienced HI gas infall due to the interaction. With AKARI far-infrared (IR) photometric observations, we found regions with enhanced star forming activity, which are spatially close to regions affected by the interaction. In addition, the relation between the star formation rate (SFR) and the gas content for such regions shows a significant difference from typical spiral arm regions. We discuss possible explanations for star formation processes on a kiloparsec scale and the association with interaction-triggered star formation. We also observed the compact group of galaxies Stephan's Quintet (SQ) with the AKARI Far-infrared Surveyor (FIS). The SQ shows diffuse intergalactic medium (IGM) due to multiple collisions between the member galaxies and the IGM. The intruder galaxy NGC 7318b is currently colliding with the IGM and causes a large-scale shock. The 160 micron image clearly shows the structure along the shock ridge as seen in warm molecular hydrogen line emission and X-ray emission. The far-IR emission from the shocked region comes from the luminous [CII] 158 μm line and cold dust (~ 20 K) that coexist with molecular hydrogen gas. Survival of dust grains is indispensable to form molecular hydrogen gas within the collision age (~ 5 Myr). At the stage of the dusty IGM environment, [CII] and H2 lines rather than X-ray emission are powerful cooling channels to release the collision energy.

The temperature (T) and entropy (S) fields of baryonic gas, or intergalactic medium (IGM), in the ACDM cosmology are analyzed using simulation samples produced by a hybrid cosmological hydrodynamic/N-body code based on the weighted essentially non-oscillatory scheme. We demonstrate that, in the nonlinear regime, the dynamical similarity between the IGM and dark matter will be broken in the presence of strong shocks in the IGM. The heating and entropy production by the shocks breaks the IGM into multiple phases. The multiphase and non-Gaussianity of the IGM field would be helpful to account for the high-temperature and high-entropy gas observed in groups and clusters with low-temperature IGM observed by Lyα forest lines and the intermittency observed by the spikes of quasi-stellar object's absorption spectrum.

In this paper I give an overview of the detection of emission from the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) in the outer parts of clusters of galaxies. The evidence for the presence of soft excess X-ray emission in 7 out of 21 clusters is summarized, and it is demonstrated that several of these clusters show the signatures of thermal emission in the outer parts. A strong signature is the presence of redshifted O VII emission at 0.57 keV. In the central parts, several clusters show also a soft excess, but m this case the observations cannot well discriminate between a thermal or non-thermal origin of the soft X-ray excess.