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Cosmological simulations of the intracluster medium

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posted on 2023-06-08, 07:38 authored by Scott T Kay, Peter ThomasPeter Thomas, Adrian Jenkins, Frazer R Pearce
We investigate the properties of the intracluster medium (ICM) that forms within N-body/hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters in a LambdaCDM cosmology. When radiative cooling and a simple model for galactic feedback are included, our clusters have X-ray luminosities and temperatures in good agreement with observed systems, demonstrating the required excess entropy in their cores. More generally, cooling and feedback increases the entropy of the ICM everywhere, albeit without significantly affecting the slope of the profile (S~r) at large radii. The temperature of the ICM is only modestly increased by these processes, with projected temperature profiles being in reasonable agreement with the observations. Star/galaxy formation is still too efficient in our simulations, however, and so our gas mass fractions are around 60 per cent of the observed value at r2500. Finally, we examine the reliability of using the hydrostatic equilibrium equation to estimate cluster masses and find that it underpredicts the true mass of our clusters by up to 20 per cent, due to incomplete thermalization of the gas. Feedback reduces this discrepancy, however, with estimates being accurate to within 10 per cent out to r500.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

ISSN

0035-8711

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Issue

4

Volume

355

Page range

1091-1104

Department affiliated with

  • Physics and Astronomy Publications

Notes

Kay was a PDRA and Thomas his supervisor: together they developed and refined the feedback models and wrote the paper. The others helped to carry out the simulations (32 citations).

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-03-22

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2016-11-16

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