Rhapsody-G simulations I: the cool cores, hot gas and stellar content of massive galaxy clusters

Abstract

We present the Rhapsody-G suite of cosmological hydrodynamic AMR zoom simulations of ten massive galaxy clusters at the M vir ∼ 10 15 M scale. These simulations include cooling and sub-resolution models for star formation and stellar and supermassive black hole feedback. The sample is selected to capture the whole gamut of assembly histories that produce clusters of similar final mass. We present an overview of the successes and shortcomings of such simulations in reproducing both the stellar properties of galaxies as well as properties of the hot plasma in clusters. In our simulations, a long-lived cool-core/non-cool core dichotomy arises naturally, and the emergence of non-cool cores is related to low angular momentum major mergers. Nevertheless, the cool-core clusters exhibit a low central entropy compared to observations, which cannot be alleviated by thermal AGN feedback. For cluster scaling relations we find that the simulations match well the M 500 − Y 500 scaling of Planck SZ clusters but deviate somewhat from the observed X-ray luminosity and temperature scaling relations in the sense of being slightly too bright and too cool at fixed mass, respectively. Stars are produced at an efficiency consistent with abundance matching constraints and central galaxies have star formation rates consistent with recent observations. While our simulations thus match various key properties remarkably well, we conclude that the shortcomings strongly suggest an important role for non-thermal processes (through feedback or otherwise) or thermal conduction in shaping the intra-cluster medium.

The Three Hundred project: a large catalogue of theoretically modelled galaxy clusters for cosmological and astrophysical applications

“…The fitting for the hydrodynamical simulations extends to 10 13 h −1 M , which shows the power of the scaling relation. The small difference between the two simulations indicates that baryonic processes only have a weak influence on these relations (see also Hahn et al 2017).…”

The redshift evolution of X-ray and Sunyaev–Zel’dovich scaling relations in the fable simulations

“…Planelles et al 2014; Barnes et al 2017a,b;Biffi et al 2017;Vogelsberger et al 2018), and the apparent dichotomy between cool-core and non-cool-core clusters (e.g. Rasia et al 2015;Hahn et al 2017; Barnes et al 2018b,a).…”

The FABLE simulations: a feedback model for galaxies, groups, and clusters

“…These improvements have facilitated hydrodynamical simulations aimed at reproducing various observational properties of clusters, such as the cool-core/non-cool-core dichotomy (e.g. Rasia et al 2015;Hahn et al 2017) and the X-ray and SZ scaling relations (e.g. Pike et al 2014;Planelles et al 2014), including their redshift evolution (e.g.…”