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

Abstract

We present the Feedback Acting on Baryons in Large-scale Environments (fable) suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies, groups and clusters. The simulations use the arepo moving-mesh code with a set of physical models for galaxy formation based on the successful Illustris simulation, but with updated AGN and supernovae feedback models. This allows us to simultaneously reproduce the observed redshift evolution of the galaxy stellar mass function together with the stellar and gas mass fractions of local groups and clusters across a wide range of halo masses. Focusing on the properties of groups and clusters, we find very good agreement with a range of observed scaling relations, including the X-ray luminosity-total mass and gas mass relations as well as the total mass-temperature and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich fluxmass relations. Careful comparison of our results with scaling relations based on X-ray hydrostatic masses as opposed to weak lensing-derived masses reveals some discrepancies, which hint towards a non-negligible X-ray mass bias in observed samples. We further show that radial profiles of density, pressure and temperature of the simulated intracluster medium are in very good agreement with observations, in particular for r > 0.3 r 500 . In the innermost regions however we find too large entropy cores, which indicates that a more sophisticated modelling of the physics of AGN feedback may be required to accurately reproduce the observed populations of cool-core and non-cool-core clusters.

Exploring the effects of galaxy formation on matter clustering through a library of simulation power spectra

“…At the same time, stellar and AGN feedback also set the stellar fraction in haloes by heating/ejecting gas and quenching star formation. While the stellar fractions or galaxy stellar mass function are often used as a constraint for subgrid recipes in simulations, cluster gas fractions are not (bahamas being one exception, fable (Henden et al 2018) being another). Based on the results presented here, we argue that to accurately predict the clustering of matter, it is important to consider both.…”

First results from the TNG50 simulation: galactic outflows driven by supernovae and black hole feedback

“…Other models produce strong BH-driven outflows by invoking different physical mechanisms and/or numerical implementations (e.g. McCarthy et al 2011;Henden et al 2018), and differentiating between these scenarios will provide useful theoretical constraints.…”

Detecting the halo heating from AGN feedback with ALMA

“…We compare the real observation discussed in this paper with simulated observations of a similar object from the fable simulations. This object was chosen from the set of "zoom-in" simulations of galaxy groups and clusters described in (Henden et al 2018). Considering only the central halo in each simulation to ensure no contamination from lowresolution boundary particles, this object was chosen given its similarity to HE0515-4414 in terms of black hole mass (within a factor of two; M BH ≈ 4.3 × 10 10 M (Lacy et al 2019)) and redshift.…”