PROBING GALAXY FORMATION MODELS IN COSMOLOGICAL SIMULATIONS WITH OBSERVATIONS OF GALAXY GROUPS

Abstract

We use multi-wavelength observations of galaxy groups to probe the formation models for galaxy formation in cosmological simulations, statistically. The observations include Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observations, optical photometry and radio observations at 1.4 GHz and 610 MHz. Using a large sample of galaxy groups observed by the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope as part of the XMM-Large Scale Survey, we carried out a statistical study of the redshift evolution of the luminosity gap for a well defined mass-selected group sample and show the relative success of some of the semi-analytic models in reproducing the observed properties of galaxy groups up to redshift z ~ 1.2. The observed trend argues in favour of a stronger evolution of the feedback from active galactic nuclei at z < 1 compared to the models. The slope of the relation between the magnitude of the brightest cluster galaxy and the value of the luminosity gap does not evolve with redshift and is well reproduced by the models. We find that the radio power of giant elliptic galaxies residing in galaxy groups with a large luminosity gap are lower compared to giant ellipticals of the same stellar masses but in typical galaxy groups.