No abstract

We propose a novel method to constrain turbulence and bulk motions in massive galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters, exploring both simulations and observations. As emerged in the recent picture of the top-down multiphase condensation, the hot gaseous halos are tightly linked to all other phases in terms of cospatiality and thermodynamics. While hot halos (∼ 10 7 K) are perturbed by subsonic turbulence, warm (∼ 10 4 K) ionized and neutral filaments condense out of the turbulent eddies. The peaks condense into cold molecular clouds (< 100 K) raining in the core via chaotic cold accretion (CCA). We show all phases are tightly linked in terms of the ensemble (wide-aperture) velocity dispersion along the line of sight. The correlation arises in complementary long-term AGN feedback simulations and high-resolution CCA runs, and is corroborated by the combined Hitomi and new Integral Field Unit measurements in Perseus cluster. The ensemble multiphase gas distributions (from UV to radio band) are characterized by substantial spectral line broadening (σ v,los ≈ 100 -200 km s −1 ) with mild line shift. On the other hand, pencil-beam detections (as HI absorption against the AGN backlight) sample the small-scale clouds displaying smaller broadening and significant line shift up to several 100 km s −1 (for those falling toward the AGN), with increased scatter due to the turbulence intermittency. We present new ensemble σ v,los of the warm Hα+[NII] gas in 72 observed cluster/group cores: the constraints are consistent with the simulations and can be used as robust proxies for the turbulent velocities, in particular for the challenging hot plasma (otherwise requiring extremely long X-ray exposures). Finally, we show the physically motivated criterion C ≡ t cool /t eddy ≈ 1 best traces the condensation extent region and presence of multiphase gas in observed clusters and groups. The ensemble method can be applied to many available spectroscopic datasets and can substantially advance our understanding of multiphase halos in light of the next-generation multiwavelength missions.

In this paper we investigate the level of hydrostatic equilibrium (HE) in the intra-cluster medium of simulated galaxy clusters, extracted from state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamical simulations performed with the Smoothed-Particle-Hydrodynamic code GADGET-3. These simulations include several physical processes, among which stellar and AGN feedback, and have been performed with an improved version of the code that allows for a better description of hydrodynamical instabilities and gas mixing processes. Evaluating the radial balance between the gravitational and hydrodynamical forces, via the gas accelerations generated, we effectively examine the level of HE in every object of the sample, its dependence on the radial distance from the center and on the classification of the cluster in terms of either cool-coreness or dynamical state. We find an average deviation of 10-20% out to the virial radius, with no evident distinction between cool-core and non-cool-core clusters. Instead, we observe a clear separation between regular and disturbed systems, with a more significant deviation from HE for the disturbed objects. The investigation of the bias between the hydrostatic estimate and the total gravitating mass indicates that, on average, this traces very well the deviation from HE, even though individual cases show a more complex picture. Typically, in the radial ranges where mass bias and deviation from HE are substantially different, the gas is characterized by a significant amount of random motions ( 30 per cent), relative to thermal ones. As a general result, the HE-deviation and mass bias, at given interesting distance from the cluster center, are not very sensitive to the temperature inhomogeneities in the gas.

We present results obtained from a set of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy clusters, aimed at comparing predictions with observational data on the diversity between cool-core (CC) and noncool-core (NCC) clusters. Our simulations include the effects of stellar and AGN feedback and are based on an improved version of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics code GADGET-3, which ameliorates gas mixing and better captures gas-dynamical instabilities by including a suitable artificial thermal diffusion. In this Letter, we focus our analysis on the entropy profiles, the primary diagnostic we used to classify the degree of cool-coreness of clusters, and on the iron profiles. In keeping with observations, our simulated clusters display a variety of behaviors in entropy profiles: they range from steadily decreasing profiles at small radii, characteristic of cool-core systems, to nearly flat core isentropic profiles, characteristic of non-cool-core systems. Using observational criteria to distinguish between the two classes of objects, we find that they occur in similar proportions in both simulations and in observations. Furthermore, we also find that simulated cool-core clusters have profiles of iron abundance that are steeper than those of NCC clusters, which is also in agreement with observational results. We show that the capability of our simulations to generate a realistic cool-core structure in the cluster population is due to AGN feedback and artificial thermal diffusion: their combined action allows us to naturally distribute the energy extracted from super-massive black holes and to compensate for the radiative losses of low-entropy gas with short cooling time residing in the cluster core.

Galaxy clusters are the endpoints of structure formation and are continuously growing through the merging and accretion of smaller structures. Numerical simulations predict that a fraction of their energy content is not yet thermalized, mainly in the form of kinetic motions (turbulence, bulk motions). Measuring the level of non-thermal pressure support is necessary to understand the processes leading to the virialization of the gas within the potential well of the main halo and to calibrate the biases in hydrostatic mass estimates. We present high-quality measurements of hydrostatic masses and intracluster gas fraction out to the virial radius for a sample of 13 nearby clusters with available XMM-Newton and Planck data. We compare our hydrostatic gas fractions with the expected universal gas fraction to constrain the level of non-thermal pressure support. We find that hydrostatic masses require little correction and infer a median non-thermal pressure fraction of ∼ 6% and ∼ 10% at R 500 and R 200 , respectively. Our values are lower than the expectations of hydrodynamical simulations, possibly implying a faster thermalization of the gas. If instead we use the mass calibration adopted by the Planck team, we find that the gas fraction of massive local systems implies a mass bias 1 − b = 0.85 ± 0.05 for SZ-derived masses, with some evidence for a mass-dependent bias. Conversely, the high bias required to match Planck CMB and cluster count cosmology is excluded by the data at high significance, unless the most massive halos are missing a substantial fraction of their baryons.

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 analyzing 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 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 heavyelement 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.

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 Y X . 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 activegalactic-nucleus (AGN) feedback. We select clusters with M 500 > 10 14 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 Y X 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.

We analyze the radial pressure profiles, the 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 nonradiative physics, the others include, among other processes, AGN and/or stellar feedback. Our results are analyzed as a function of redshift, ICM physics, cluster mass and cluster coolcoreness 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 coolcore (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 center and with the dynamical activity. The inclusion of AGN feedback in our simulations generates values for the gas clumping ( √ C ρ ∼ 1.2 at R 200 ) in good agreement with recent observational estimates. The simulated Y SZ − 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.