184 research outputs found
Properties of gas clumps and gas clumping factor in the intra cluster medium
The spatial distribution of gas matter inside galaxy clusters is not
completely smooth, but may host gas clumps associated with substructures. These
overdense gas substructures are generally a source of unresolved bias of X-ray
observations towards high density gas, but their bright luminosity peaks may be
resolved sources within the ICM, that deep X-ray exposures may be (already)
capable to detect. In this paper we aim at investigating both features, using a
set of high-resolution cosmological simulations with ENZO. First, we monitor
how the bias by unresolved gas clumping may yield incorrect estimates of global
cluster parameters and affects the measurements of baryon fractions by X-ray
observations. We find that based on X-ray observations of narrow radial strips,
it is difficult to recover the real baryon fraction to better than 10 - 20
percent uncertainty. Second, we investigated the possibility of observing
bright X-ray clumps in the nearby Universe (z<=0.3). We produced simple mock
X-ray observations for several instruments (XMM, Suzaku and ROSAT) and
extracted the statistics of potentially detectable bright clumps. Some of the
brightest clumps predicted by simulations may already have been already
detected in X- ray images with a large field of view. However, their small
projected size makes it difficult to prove their existence based on X-ray
morphology only. Preheating, AGN feedback and cosmic rays are found to have
little impact on the statistical properties of gas clumps.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures. MNRAS accepte
Gas clumping in galaxy clusters
The reconstruction of galaxy cluster's gas density profiles is usually
performed by assuming spherical symmetry and averaging the observed X-ray
emission in circular annuli. In the case of a very inhomogeneous and asymmetric
gas distribution, this method has been shown to return biased results in
numerical simulations because of the dependence of the X-ray emissivity.
We propose a method to recover the true density profiles in the presence of
inhomogeneities, based on the derivation of the azimuthal median of the surface
brightness in concentric annuli. We demonstrate the performance of this method
with numerical simulations, and apply it to a sample of 31 galaxy clusters in
the redshift range 0.04-0.2 observed with ROSAT/PSPC. The clumping factors
recovered by comparing the mean and the median are mild and show a slight trend
of increasing bias with radius. For , we measure a clumping factor
, which indicates that the thermodynamic properties and
hydrostatic masses measured in this radial range are only mildly affected by
this effect. Comparing our results with three sets of hydrodynamical numerical
simulations, we found that non-radiative simulations significantly overestimate
the level of inhomogeneities in the ICM, while the runs including cooling, star
formation, and AGN feedback reproduce the observed trends closely. Our results
indicate that most of the accretion of X-ray emitting gas is taking place in
the diffuse, large-scale accretion patterns rather than in compact structures.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS.
Largely-improved version compared to v1, method and comparison with
simulations update
The turbulent pressure support in galaxy clusters revisited
Due to their late formation in cosmic history, clusters of galaxies are not
fully in hydrostatic equilibrium and the gravitational pull of their mass at a
given radius is expected not to be entirely balanced by the thermal gas
pressure. Turbulence may supply additional pressure, and recent (X-ray and SZ)
hydrostatic mass reconstructions claim a pressure support of of
the total pressure at . In this work we show that, after carefully
disentangling bulk from small-scale turbulent motions in high-resolution
simulations of galaxy clusters, we can constrain which fraction of the gas
kinetic energy effectively provides pressure support in the cluster's
gravitational potential. While the ubiquitous presence of radial inflows in the
cluster can lead to significant bias in the estimate of the non-thermal
pressure support, we report that only a part of this energy effectively acts as
a source of pressure, providing a support of the order of of the
total pressure at .Comment: 5 pages, 5 pages, accepted, to appear in MNRAS Letter
Electron and proton acceleration efficiency by merger shocks in galaxy clusters
Radio relics in galaxy clusters are associated with powerful shocks that (re)accelerate relativistic electrons. It is widely believed that the acceleration proceeds via diffusive shock acceleration. In the framework of thermal leakage, the ratio of the energy in relativistic electrons to the energy in relativistic protons should be smaller than Ke/pâŒ10â2. The relativistic protons interact with the thermal gas to produce Îł-rays in hadronic interactions. Combining observations of radio relics with upper limits from Îł-ray observatories can constrain the ratio Ke/p. In this work, we selected 10 galaxy clusters that contain double radio relics, and derive new upper limits from the stacking of Îł-ray observations by Fermi. We modelled the propagation of shocks using a semi-analytical model, where we assumed a simple geometry for shocks and that cosmic ray protons are trapped in the intracluster medium. Our analysis shows that diffusive shock acceleration has difficulties in matching simultaneously the observed radio emission and the constraints imposed by Fermi, unless the magnetic field in relics is unrealistically large ( â« 10âÎŒG). In all investigated cases (also including realistic variations of our basic model and the effect of re-acceleration), the mean emission of the sample is of the order of the stacking limit by Fermi, or larger. These findings put tension on the commonly adopted model for the powering of radio relics, and imply that the relative acceleration efficiency of electrons and protons is at odds with predictions of diffusive shock acceleration, requiring Ke/pâ„10 â 10â
Simulating the transport of relativistic electrons and magnetic fields injected by radio galaxies in the intracluster medium
Radio galaxies play an important role in the seeding of cosmic rays and
magnetic fields in galaxy clusters. Here, we simulate the evolution of
relativistic electrons injected into the intracluster medium by radio galaxies.
Using passive tracer particles added to magnetohydrodynamical adaptive-mesh
simulations, we calculate the evolution of the spectrum of relativistic
electrons taking into account energy losses and re-acceleration mechanisms
associated with the dynamics of the intracluster medium. Re-acceleration can
occur at shocks via diffusive shock acceleration, and in turbulent flows via
second-order Fermi re-acceleration. This study confirms that relativistic
electrons from radio galaxies can efficiently fill the intracluster medium over
scales of several , and that they create a stable reservoir of
fossil electrons that remains available for further re-acceleration by shock
waves and turbulent gas motions. Our results also show that late evolution of
radio lobes and remnant radio galaxies is significantly affected by the
dynamics of the surrounding intracluster medium. Here the diffusive
re-acceleration couples the evolution of relativistic particles to the gas
perturbations. In the near future, deep radio observations, especially at low
frequencies, can probe such mechanisms in galaxy clusters.Comment: 22 pages, 20 figures, A & A, in pres
On the connection between turbulent motions and particle acceleration in galaxy clusters
Giant radio halos are Mpc-scale diffuse radio sources associated with the
central regions of galaxy clusters. The most promising scenario to explain the
origin of these sources is that of turbulent re-acceleration, in which MeV
electrons injected throughout the formation history of galaxy clusters are
accelerated to higher energies by turbulent motions mostly induced by cluster
mergers. In this Letter, we use the amplitude of density fluctuations in the
intracluster medium as a proxy for the turbulent velocity and apply this
technique to a sample of 51 clusters with available radio data. Our results
indicate a segregation in the turbulent velocity of radio halo and radio quiet
clusters, with the turbulent velocity of the former being on average higher by
about a factor of two. The velocity dispersion recovered with this technique
correlates with the measured radio power through the relation , which implies that the radio power is
nearly proportional to the turbulent energy rate. Our results provide an
observational confirmation of a key prediction of the turbulent re-acceleration
model and possibly shed light on the origin of radio halos.Comment: Submitted to ApJ Letter
Effects of Galaxy Formation on Thermodynamics of the Intracluster Medium
We present detailed comparisons of the intracluster medium (ICM) in
cosmological Eulerian cluster simulations with deep Chandra observations of
nearby relaxed clusters. To assess the impact of galaxy formation, we compare
two sets of simulations, one performed in the non-radiative regime and another
with radiative cooling and several physical processes critical to various
aspects of galaxy formation: star formation, metal enrichment and stellar
feedback. We show that the observed ICM properties outside cluster cores are
well-reproduced in the simulations that include cooling and star formation,
while the non-radiative simulations predict an overall shape of the ICM
profiles inconsistent with observations. In particular, we find that the ICM
entropy in our runs with cooling is enhanced to the observed levels at radii as
large as half of the virial radius. We also find that outside cluster cores
entropy scaling with the mean ICM temperature in both simulations and Chandra
observations is consistent with being self-similar within current error bars.
We find that the pressure profiles of simulated clusters are also close to
self-similar and exhibit little cluster-to-cluster scatter. The X-ray
observable-total mass relations for our simulated sample agree with the Chandra
measurements to \~10%-20% in normalization. We show that this systematic
difference could be caused by the subsonic gas motions, unaccounted for in
X-ray hydrostatic mass estimates. The much improved agreement of simulations
and observations in the ICM profiles and scaling relations is encouraging and
the existence of tight relations of X-ray observables, such as Yx, and total
cluster mass and the simple redshift evolution of these relations hold promise
for the use of clusters as cosmological probes.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Matches version accepted to Ap
Conversion of TeV photons in realistic extragalactic magnetic field
13th Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs, Patras 2017, Thessaloniki, Greece, 15 May 2017 - 19 May 2017; Hamburg : Verlag Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, DESY-PROC, (2018). doi:10.3204/DESY-PROC-2017-0
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