We present a new suite of large-volume cosmological hydrodynamical simulations called cosmo-OWLS. They form an extension to the OverWhelmingly Large Simulations (OWLS) project, and have been designed ...to help improve our understanding of cluster astrophysics and non-linear structure formation, which are now the limiting systematic errors when using clusters as cosmological probes. Starting from identical initial conditions in either the Planck or WMAP7 cosmologies, we systematically vary the most important ‘sub-grid’ physics, including feedback from supernovae and active galactic nuclei (AGN). We compare the properties of the simulated galaxy groups and clusters to a wide range of observational data, such as X-ray luminosity and temperature, gas mass fractions, entropy and density profiles, Sunyaev–Zel'dovich flux, I-band mass-to-light ratio, dominance of the brightest cluster galaxy and central massive black hole (BH) masses, by producing synthetic observations and mimicking observational analysis techniques. These comparisons demonstrate that some AGN feedback models can produce a realistic population of galaxy groups and clusters, broadly reproducing both the median trend and, for the first time, the scatter in physical properties over approximately two decades in mass (1013 M⊙ ≲ M500 ≲ 1015 M⊙) and 1.5 decades in radius (0.05 ≲ r/r
500 ≲ 1.5). However, in other models, the AGN feedback is too violent (even though they reproduce the observed BH scaling relations), implying that calibration of the models is required. The production of realistic populations of simulated groups and clusters, as well as models that bracket the observations, opens the door to the creation of synthetic surveys for assisting the astrophysical and cosmological interpretation of cluster surveys, as well as quantifying the impact of selection effects.
The evolution of the large-scale distribution of matter is sensitive to a variety of fundamental parameters that characterize the dark matter, dark energy, and other aspects of our cosmological ...framework. Since the majority of the mass density is in the form of dark matter that cannot be directly observed, to do cosmology with large-scale structure, one must use observable (baryonic) quantities that trace the underlying matter distribution in a (hopefully) predictable way. However, recent numerical studies have demonstrated that the mapping between observable and total mass, as well as the total mass itself, are sensitive to unresolved feedback processes associated with galaxy formation, motivating explicit calibration of the feedback efficiencies. Here, we construct a new suite of large-volume cosmological hydrodynamical simulations (called bahamas, for BAryons and HAloes of MAssive Systems), where subgrid models of stellar and active galactic nucleus feedback have been calibrated to reproduce the present-day galaxy stellar mass function and the hot gas mass fractions of groups and clusters in order to ensure the effects of feedback on the overall matter distribution are broadly correct. We show that the calibrated simulations reproduce an unprecedentedly wide range of properties of massive systems, including the various observed mappings between galaxies, hot gas, total mass, and black holes, and represent a significant advance in our ability to mitigate the primary systematic uncertainty in most present large-scale structure tests.
We use cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to investigate how the inclusion of physical processes relevant to galaxy formation (star formation, metal-line cooling, stellar winds, supernovae and ...feedback from active galactic nuclei, AGN) change the properties of haloes, over four orders of magnitude in mass. We find that gas expulsion and the associated dark matter (DM) expansion induced by supernova-driven winds are important for haloes with masses M
200 ≲ 1013 M⊙, lowering their masses by up to 20 per cent relative to a DM-only model. AGN feedback, which is required to prevent overcooling, has a significant impact on halo masses all the way up to cluster scales (M
200 ∼ 1015 M⊙). Baryon physics changes the total mass profiles of haloes out to several times the virial radius, a modification that cannot be captured by a change in the halo concentration. The decrease in the total halo mass causes a decrease in the halo mass function of about 20 per cent. This effect can have important consequences for the abundance matching technique as well as for most semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. We provide analytic fitting formulae, derived from simulations that reproduce the observed baryon fractions, to correct halo masses and mass functions from DM-only simulations. The effect of baryon physics (AGN feedback in particular) on cluster number counts is about as large as changing the cosmology from Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 to Planck, even when a moderately high-mass limit of M
500 ≈ 1014 M⊙ is adopted. Thus, for precision cosmology the effects of baryons must be accounted for.
Accurate cosmology from upcoming weak lensing surveys relies on knowledge of the total matter power spectrum at per cent level at scales k < 10 h Mpc^−1, for which modelling the impact of baryonic ...physics is crucial. We compare measurements of the total matter power spectrum from the Horizon cosmological hydrodynamical simulations: a dark-matter-only run, one with full baryonic physics, and another lacking active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback. Baryons cause a suppression of power at k ≃ 10 h Mpc^−1 of |${\lt}15{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$| at |$z$| = 0, and an enhancement of a factor of a few at smaller scales due to the more efficient cooling and star formation. The results are sensitive to the presence of the highest mass haloes in the simulation and the distribution of dark matter is also impacted up to a few per cent. The redshift evolution of the effect is non-monotonic throughout |$z$| = 0−5 due to an interplay between AGN feedback and gas pressure, and the growth of structure. We investigate the effectiveness of an analytic ‘baryonic correction model’ in describing our results. We require a different redshift evolution and propose an alternative fitting function with four free parameters that reproduces our results within |$5{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$|. Compared to other simulations, we find the impact of baryonic processes on the total matter power spectrum to be smaller at |$z$| = 0. Correspondingly, our results suggest that AGN feedback is not strong enough in the simulation. Total matter power spectra from the Horizon simulations are made publicly available at https://www.horizon-simulation.org/catalogues.html.
Numerous intracerebral calcifications Gomes de Pinho, Q; Le Brun, M; Benyamine, A ...
La revue de medecine interne,
08/2022, Letnik:
43, Številka:
8
Journal Article
The amplitude of the thermal Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect (tSZ) power spectrum is extremely sensitive to the abundance of the most massive dark matter haloes (galaxy clusters) and therefore to ...fundamental cosmological parameters that control their growth, such as σ8 and Ωm. Here we explore the sensitivity of the tSZ power spectrum to important non-gravitational (‘subgrid’) physics by employing the cosmo-OWLS suite of large-volume cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, run in both the Planck and 7-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP7) best-fitting cosmologies. On intermediate and small angular scales (ℓ ≳ 1000, or θ≲10 arcmin), accessible with the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), the predicted tSZ power spectrum is highly model dependent, with gas ejection due to active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback having a particularly large effect. However, at large scales, observable with the Planck telescope, the effects of subgrid physics are minor. Comparing the simulated tSZ power spectra with observations, we find a significant amplitude offset on all measured angular scales (including large scales), if the Planck best-fitting cosmology is assumed by the simulations. This is shown to be a generic result for all current models of the tSZ power spectrum. By contrast, if the WMAP7 cosmology is adopted, there is full consistency with the Planck tSZ power spectrum measurements on large scales and agreement at the 2σ level with the SPT and ACT measurements at intermediate scales for our fiducial AGN model, which Le Brun et al. have shown reproduces the ‘resolved’ properties of the Local Group and cluster population remarkably well. These findings strongly suggest that there are significantly fewer massive galaxy clusters than expected for the Planck best-fitting cosmology, which is consistent with recent measurements of the tSZ number counts. Our findings therefore pose a significant challenge to the cosmological parameter values preferred (and/or the model adopted) by the Planck primary cosmic microwave background analyses.
The thermal Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect offers a means of probing the hot gas in and around massive galaxies and galaxy groups and clusters, which is thought to constitute a large fraction of the ...baryon content of the Universe. The Planck collaboration recently performed a stacking analysis of a large sample of ‘locally brightest galaxies’ (LBGs) and, surprisingly, inferred an approximately self-similar relation between the tSZ flux and halo mass. At face value, this implies that the hot gas mass fraction is independent of halo mass, a result which is in apparent conflict with resolved X-ray observations. We test the robustness of the inferred trend using synthetic tSZ maps generated from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations and using the same tools and assumptions applied in the Planck study. We show that, while the detection and the estimate of the ‘total’ flux (within 5r
500) is reasonably robust, the inferred flux originating from within r
500 (i.e. the limiting radius to which X-ray observations typically probe) is highly sensitive to the assumed pressure distribution of the gas. Using our most realistic simulations with AGN feedback, that reproduce a wide variety of X-ray and optical properties of groups and clusters, we estimate that the derived tSZ flux within r
500 is biased high by up to an order of magnitude for haloes with masses M
500 ∼ 1013 M⊙. Moreover, we show that the AGN simulations are consistent with the total tSZ flux–mass relation observed with Planck, whereas a self-similar model is ruled out.