We present an analysis of the relation between the masses of cluster- and group-sized haloes, extracted from Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmological N-body and hydrodynamic simulations, and their ...velocity dispersion at different redshifts from z = 2 to 0. The main aim of this analysis is to understand how the implementation of baryonic physics in simulations affects such relations, i.e. to what extent the use of the velocity dispersion as a proxy for cluster mass determination is hampered by the imperfect knowledge of the baryonic physics. In our analysis, we use several sets of simulations with different physics implemented: one DM-only simulation, one simulation with non-radiative gas, and two radiative simulations, one of which with feedback from active galactic nuclei. Velocity dispersions are determined using three different tracers: DM particles, subhaloes and galaxies.
We confirm that DM particles trace a relation that is fully consistent with the theoretical expectations based on the virial theorem, σv ∝ M
α with α = 1/3, and with previous results presented in the literature. On the other hand, subhaloes and galaxies trace steeper relations, with velocity dispersion scaling with mass with α > 1/3, and with larger values of the normalization. Such relations imply that galaxies and subhaloes have a ∼10 per cent velocity bias relative to the DM particles, which can be either positive or negative, depending on the halo mass, redshift and physics implemented in the simulation.
We explain these differences as due to dynamical processes, namely dynamical friction and tidal disruption, acting on substructures and galaxies, but not on DM particles. These processes appear to be more or less effective, depending on the halo masses and the importance of baryon cooling, and may create a non-trivial dependence of the velocity bias and the σ1D-M
200 relation on the tracer, the halo mass and its redshift.
These results are relevant in view of the application of velocity dispersion as a proxy for cluster masses in ongoing and future large redshift surveys.
Abstract
The uniformity of the intracluster medium (ICM) enrichment level in the outskirts of nearby galaxy clusters suggests that chemical elements were deposited and widely spread into the ...intergalactic medium before the cluster formation. This observational evidence is supported by numerical findings from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, as presented in Biffi et al., including the effect of thermal feedback from active galactic nuclei. Here, we further investigate this picture, by tracing back in time the spatial origin and metallicity evolution of the gas residing at z = 0 in the outskirts of simulated galaxy clusters. In these regions, we find a large distribution of iron abundances, including a component of highly enriched gas, already present at z = 2. At z > 1, the gas in the present-day outskirts was distributed over tens of virial radii from the main cluster and had been already enriched within high-redshift haloes. At z = 2, about $40\,\,\rm{per\,\,cent}$ of the most Fe-rich gas at z = 0 was not residing in any halo more massive than $10^{11}\,h^{-1}\rm {\,M_{{\odot }}}$ in the region and yet its average iron abundance was already 0.4, w.r.t. the solar value by Anders & Grevesse. This confirms that the in situ enrichment of the ICM in the outskirts of present-day clusters does not play a significant role, and its uniform metal abundance is rather the consequence of the accretion of both low-metallicity and pre-enriched (at z > 2) gas, from the diffuse component and through merging substructures. These findings do not depend on the mass of the cluster nor on its core properties.
We present an analysis of the properties of the intracluster medium (ICM) in an extended set of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters and groups performed with the treepm+sph
...gadget-3 code. Besides a set of non-radiative simulations, we carried out two sets of simulations including radiative cooling, star formation, metal enrichment and feedback from supernovae (SNe), one of which also accounts for the effect of feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) resulting from gas accretion on to supermassive black holes. These simulations are analysed with the aim of studying the relative role played by SN and AGN feedback on the general properties of the diffuse hot baryons in galaxy clusters and groups: scaling relations, temperature, entropy and pressure radial profiles, and ICM chemical enrichment. We find that simulations including AGN feedback produce scaling relations between X-ray observable quantities that are in good agreement with observations at all mass scales. Observed pressure profiles are also shown to be quite well reproduced in our radiative simulations, especially when AGN feedback is included. However, our simulations are not able to account for the observed diversity between cool-core and non-cool-core clusters, as revealed by X-ray observations: unlike for observations, we find that temperature and entropy profiles of relaxed and unrelaxed clusters are quite similar and resemble more the observed behaviour of non-cool-core clusters. As for the pattern of metal enrichment, we find that an enhanced level of iron abundance is produced by AGN feedback with respect to the case of purely SN feedback. As a result, while simulations including AGN produce values of iron abundance in groups in agreement with observations, they over-enrich the ICM in massive clusters. The efficiency of AGN feedback in displacing enriched gas from haloes into the intergalactic medium at high redshift also creates a widespread enrichment in the outskirts of clusters and produces profiles of iron abundance whose slope is in better agreement with observations. By analysing the pattern of the relative abundances of silicon and iron and the fraction of metals in the stellar phase, our results clearly show that different sources of energy feedback leave different imprints in the enrichment pattern of the hot ICM and stars. Our results confirm that including AGN feedback goes in the right direction of reconciling simulation predictions and observations for several observational ICM properties. Still a number of important discrepancies highlight that the model still needs to be improved to produce the correct interplay between cooling and feedback in central cluster regions.
Abstract
The distribution of metals in the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters provides valuable information on their formation and evolution, on the connection with the cosmic star ...formation and on the effects of different gas processes. By analysing a sample of simulated galaxy clusters, we study the chemical enrichment of the ICM, its evolution, and its relation with the physical processes included in the simulation and with the thermal properties of the core. These simulations, consisting of re-simulations of 29 Lagrangian regions performed with an upgraded version of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) gadget-3 code, have been run including two different sets of baryonic physics: one accounts for radiative cooling, star formation, metal enrichment and supernova (SN) feedback, and the other one further includes the effects of feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN). In agreement with observations, we find an anti-correlation between entropy and metallicity in cluster cores, and similar radial distributions of heavy-element abundances and abundance ratios out to large cluster-centric distances (∼R
180). In the outskirts, namely outside of ∼0.2 R
180, we find a remarkably homogeneous metallicity distribution, with almost flat profiles of the elements produced by either SNIa or SNII. We investigated the origin of this phenomenon and discovered that it is due to the widespread displacement of metal-rich gas by early (z > 2–3) AGN powerful bursts, acting on small high-redshift haloes. Our results also indicate that the intrinsic metallicity of the hot gas for this sample is on average consistent with no evolution between z = 2 and z = 0, across the entire radial range.
Abstract
We analyse the radial pressure profiles, the intracluster medium (ICM) clumping factor and the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) scaling relations of a sample of simulated galaxy clusters and groups ...identified in a set of hydrodynamical simulations based on an updated version of the treepm–SPH GADGET-3 code. Three different sets of simulations are performed: the first assumes non-radiative physics, the others include, among other processes, active galactic nucleus (AGN) and/or stellar feedback. Our results are analysed as a function of redshift, ICM physics, cluster mass and cluster cool-coreness or dynamical state. In general, the mean pressure profiles obtained for our sample of groups and clusters show a good agreement with X-ray and SZ observations. Simulated cool-core (CC) and non-cool-core (NCC) clusters also show a good match with real data. We obtain in all cases a small (if any) redshift evolution of the pressure profiles of massive clusters, at least back to z = 1. We find that the clumpiness of gas density and pressure increases with the distance from the cluster centre and with the dynamical activity. The inclusion of AGN feedback in our simulations generates values for the gas clumping ($\sqrt{C}_{\rho }\sim 1.2$ at R200) in good agreement with recent observational estimates. The simulated YSZ–M scaling relations are in good accordance with several observed samples, especially for massive clusters. As for the scatter of these relations, we obtain a clear dependence on the cluster dynamical state, whereas this distinction is not so evident when looking at the subsamples of CC and NCC clusters.
We present a study of the effect of active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback on metal enrichment and thermal properties of the intracluster medium (ICM) in hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters. ...The simulations are performed using a version of the TreePM–sphgadget-2 code, which also follows chemodynamical evolution by accounting for metal enrichment contributed by different stellar populations. We carry out cosmological simulations for a set of galaxy clusters, covering the mass range M200≃ (0.1–2.2) × 1015 h−1 M⊙. Besides runs not including any efficient form of energy feedback, we carry out simulations including three different feedback schemes: (i) kinetic feedback in the form of galactic winds triggered by supernova explosions; (ii) AGN feedback from gas accretion on to supermassive black holes (BHs) and (iii) AGN feedback in which a ‘radio mode’ is included with an efficient thermal coupling of the extracted energy, whenever BHs enter in a quiescent accretion phase. Besides investigating the resulting thermal properties of the ICM, we analyse in detail the effect that these feedback models have on the ICM metal enrichment. We find that AGN feedback has the desired effect of quenching star formation in the brightest cluster galaxies at z < 4 and provides correct temperature profiles in the central regions of galaxy groups. However, its effect is not yet sufficient to create ‘cool cores’ in massive clusters while generating an excess of entropy in central regions of galaxy groups. As for the pattern of metal distribution, AGN feedback creates a widespread enrichment in the outskirts of clusters, thanks to its efficiency in displacing enriched gas from galactic haloes to the intergalactic medium. This turns into profiles of iron abundance, ZFe, which are in better agreement with observational results, and into a more pristine enrichment of the ICM around and beyond the cluster virial regions. Following the pattern of the relative abundances of silicon and iron, we conclude that a significant fraction of the ICM enrichment is contributed in simulations by a diffuse population of intracluster stars. Our simulations also predict that profiles of the ZSi/ZFe abundance ratio do not increase at increasing radii, at least out to 0.5Rvir. Our results clearly show that different sources of energy feedback leave distinct imprints in the enrichment pattern of the ICM. They further demonstrate that such imprints are more evident when looking at external regions, approaching the cluster virial boundaries.
We carry out an analysis of a set of cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters and groups aimed at studying the total baryon budget in clusters, ...and how this budget is shared between the hot diffuse component and the stellar component. Using the TreePM+SPH gadget-3 code, we carried out one set of non-radiative simulations, and two sets of simulations including radiative cooling, star formation and feedback from supernovae (SNe), one of which also accounting for the effect of feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN). The analysis is carried out with the twofold aim of studying the implication of stellar and hot gas content on the relative role played by SNe and AGN feedback, and to calibrate the cluster baryon fraction and its evolution as a cosmological tool. With respect to previous similar analysis, the simulations used in this study provide us with a sufficient statistics of massive objects and including an efficient AGN feedback. We find that both radiative simulation sets predict a trend of stellar mass fraction with cluster mass that tends to be weaker than the observed one. However this tension depends on the particular set of observational data considered. Including the effect of AGN feedback alleviates this tension on the stellar mass and predicts values of the hot gas mass fraction and total baryon fraction to be in closer agreement with observational results. We further compute the ratio between the cluster baryon content and the cosmic baryon fraction, Y
b, as a function of clustercentric radius and redshift. At R
500 we find for massive clusters with M
500 > 2 × 1014 h
−1 M that Y
b is nearly independent of the physical processes included and characterized by a negligible redshift evolution: Y
b, 500 = 0.85 ± 0.03 with the error accounting for the intrinsic rms scatter within the set of simulated clusters. At smaller radii, R
2500, the typical value of Y
b slightly decreases, by an amount that depends on the physics included in the simulations, while its scatter increases by about a factor of 2. These results have interesting implications for the cosmological applications of the baryon fraction in clusters.
Abstract
We analyse cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters to study the X-ray scaling relations between total masses and observable quantities such as X-ray luminosity, gas mass, ...X-ray temperature, and YX. Three sets of simulations are performed with an improved version of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics gadget-3 code. These consider the following: non-radiative gas, star formation and stellar feedback, and the addition of feedback by active galactic nuclei (AGN). We select clusters with M500 > 1014 M⊙E(z)−1, mimicking the typical selection of Sunyaev–Zeldovich samples. This permits to have a mass range large enough to enable robust fitting of the relations even at z ∼ 2. The results of the analysis show a general agreement with observations. The values of the slope of the mass–gas mass and mass–temperature relations at z = 2 are 10 per cent lower with respect to z = 0 due to the applied mass selection, in the former case, and to the effect of early merger in the latter. We investigate the impact of the slope variation on the study of the evolution of the normalization. We conclude that cosmological studies through scaling relations should be limited to the redshift range z = 0–1, where we find that the slope, the scatter, and the covariance matrix of the relations are stable. The scaling between mass and YX is confirmed to be the most robust relation, being almost independent of the gas physics. At higher redshifts, the scaling relations are sensitive to the inclusion of AGNs which influences low-mass systems. The detailed study of these objects will be crucial to evaluate the AGN effect on the ICM.
Using extended sets of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters, we present a detailed study of scaling relations between total cluster mass and three mass proxies based on X-ray ...observable quantities: temperature of the intracluster medium (ICM), gas mass and the product of the two, YX
=M
gas
T. Our analysis is based on two sets of high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations performed with the TreePM-SPH gadget code. The first set includes about 140 clusters with masses above 5 × 1013
h
−1 M⊙, with 30 such clusters having mass above 1015
h
−1 M⊙. All such clusters have been simulated in two flavours, both with non-radiative physics and including cooling, star formation, chemical enrichment and the effect of supernova feedback triggering galactic ejecta. The extensive statistics offered by this set of simulated clusters is used to quantify the robustness of the scaling relations between mass proxies and total mass, to determine their redshift evolution and to calibrate their intrinsic scatter and its distribution. Furthermore, we use a smaller set of clusters including 18 haloes with masses above 5 × 1013
h
−1 M⊙, four of which are more massive than 1015
h
−1 M⊙, to test the robustness of mass proxies against change in the physical processes that are included in the simulations to describe the evolution of the intracluster medium. Each cluster is simulated in seven different flavours to study the effects of (i) thermal conduction, (ii) artificial viscosity, (iii) cooling and star formation, (iv) galactic winds and (v) active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback.
As a general result, we find the M-Y
X scaling relation to be the least sensitive to variations in the ICM physics, its slope and redshift evolution always being very close to the predictions of the self-similar model. As regards the scatter around the best-fitting relations, its distribution is always close to a log-normal one. M
gas is the mass proxy with the smallest scatter in mass, with values of σln M
≃ 0.04-0.06 depending on the physics included in the simulation and with a mild dependence on redshift. In terms of the mass-temperature relation, it is the one with the largest scatter, with σln M
≳ 0.1 at z= 0 increasing to ≳0.15 at z= 1. The intrinsic scatter in the M-Y
X relation is slightly larger than that in the M-M
gas relation, with σln M
≃ 0.06 at z= 0 and 0.08 at z= 1. These results confirm that both Y
X and M
gas mass proxies are well suited for cosmological applications in future large X-ray surveys. As a word of caution, we point out that the analysis presented in this paper does not include the observational effects expected when measuring temperature by fitting X-ray spectra and gas mass from X-ray surface-brightness profiles. A detailed assessment of such effects will be the subject of a forthcoming paper.
We present a comparison between weak-lensing and x-ray mass estimates of a sample of numerically simulated clusters. The sample consists of the 20 most massive objects at redshift z = 0.25 and Mvir > ...5 × 1014M h−1. They were found in a cosmological simulation of volume 1 h−3 Gpc3, evolved in the framework of a WMAP-7 normalized cosmology. Each cluster has been resimulated at higher resolution and with more complex gas physics. We processed it through Skylens and X-MAS to generate optical and x-ray mock observations along three orthogonal projections. The final sample consists of 60 cluster realizations. The optical simulations include lensing effects on background sources. Standard observational tools and methods of analysis are used to recover the mass profiles of each cluster projection from the mock catalogue. The resulting mass profiles from lensing and x-ray are individually compared to the input mass distributions. Given the size of our sample, we could also investigate the dependence of the results on cluster morphology, environment, temperature inhomogeneity and mass. We confirm previous results showing that lensing masses obtained from the fit of the cluster tangential shear profiles with Navarro-Frenk-White functionals are biased low by ∼5-10% with a large scatter (∼10-25%). We show that scatter could be reduced by optimally selecting clusters either having regular morphology or living in substructure-poor environment. The x-ray masses are biased low by a large amount (∼25-35%), evidencing the presence of both non-thermal sources of pressure in the intra-cluster medium (ICM) and temperature inhomogeneity, but they show a significantly lower scatter than weak-lensing-derived masses. The x-ray mass bias grows from the inner to the outer regions of the clusters. We find that both biases are weakly correlated with the third-order power ratio, while a stronger correlation exists with the centroid shift. Finally, the x-ray bias is strongly connected with temperature inhomogeneities. Comparison with a previous analysis of simulations leads to the conclusion that the values of x-ray mass bias from simulations are still uncertain, showing dependences on the ICM physical treatment and, possibly, on the hydrodynamical scheme adopted.
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