Virialization of Galaxy Clusters and Beyond

Abstract

Using samples of structures identified by a multiscale decomposition from numerical simulations, we analyze the scale dependence of the virialization of clusters. We find that beyond the scale of full virialization there exists a radius range over which clusters are quasi-virialized, i.e., while the internal structure of an individual cluster may depart substantially from dynamical relaxation, some statistical properties of the multiscale-identified clusters are approximately the same as those for the virialized systems. The dynamical reason for the existence of quasi virialization is that some of the scaling properties of dynamically relaxed systems of cosmic gravitational clustering approximately hold beyond the full virialization regime. This scaling can also be seen from a semianalytic calculation of the mass functions of collapsed and uncollapsed halos in the Press-Schechter formalism. The individual-statistical duality of the quasi virialization provides an explanation of the observed puzzle that the total masses of clusters derived from virial theory are statistically the same as the masses determined from gravitational lensing, in spite of the presence of irregular configuration and substructures in individual clusters. It also explains the tight correlation between the velocity dispersion of optical galaxies and the temperature of X-ray-emitting gas. Consequently, the virial mass estimators based on the assumptions of isothermal and hydrostatic models are statistically applicable to scales on which the clusters are quasi-virialized. In the quasi-virialization regime, the temperature functions of clusters also show scaling. This feature is a useful discriminator among models. As a preliminary comparison with observation, the discriminator yields favor the models of LCDM and OCDM.