Synthetic datasets generated from large-volume gravity-only simulations are
an important tool in the calibration of cosmological analyses. Their creation
often requires accurate inference of baryonic observables from the dark matter
field. We explore the effectiveness of a baryon pasting algorithm in providing
precise estimations of three-dimensional gas thermodynamic properties based on
gravity-only simulations. We use the Borg Cube, a pair of simulations
originating from identical initial conditions, with one run evolved as a
gravity-only simulation, and the other incorporating non-radiative
hydrodynamics. Matching halos in both simulations enables comparisons of gas
properties on an individual halo basis. This comparative analysis allows us to
fit for the model parameters that yield the closest agreement between the gas
properties in both runs. To capture the redshift evolution of these parameters,
we perform the analysis at five distinct redshift steps, spanning from z=0 to
2. We find that the investigated algorithm, utilizing information solely from
the gravity-only simulation, achieves few-percent accuracy in reproducing the
median intracluster gas pressure and density, albeit with a scatter of
approximately 20%, for cluster-scale objects up to z=2. We measure the
scaling relation between integrated Compton parameter and cluster mass
(Y500c∣M500c), and find that the imprecision of baryon pasting adds
less than 5% to the intrinsic scatter measured in the hydrodynamic simulation.
We provide best-fitting values and their redshift evolution, and discuss future
investigations that will be undertaken to extend this work.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables; accepted in the Open Journal of
Astrophysic