Outer Regions Of Galaxy Clusters Research Articles

Overabundance of orphan galaxies in the UniverseMachine empirical galaxy formation model

ABSTRACT Orphan galaxies that have lost a large fraction of the dark matter subhaloes have often been invoked in semi-analytical as well as empirical models of galaxy formation. However, observations have not yet constrained the distribution of orphan galaxies in such models so far. We run a mock cluster finder that mimics the optical cluster finding technique of the redMaPPer algorithm on a catalogue of galaxies with quenched star formation from one such empirical model, the UniverseMachine, and obtain the prevalence of orphan galaxies in these clusters as a function of their cluster-centric distance. We compare the fraction of orphan galaxies with the upper limits derived based on our prior observations of the weak lensing signals around satellite galaxies from SDSS redMaPPer clusters. Although the orphan fraction from the UniverseMachine is marginally consistent with the upper limits in the innermost regions of galaxy clusters spanning $[0.1, 0.3]\, {h^{-1}\,\rm Mpc}$, we observe that the orphan fractions substantially violate the upper limits in the outer regions of galaxy clusters beyond $0.3\,{h^{-1}\,\rm Mpc}$. We discuss the reasons, plausible improvements to the model, and how observations can be used to constrain such models further.

Cosmic-Ray Acceleration and Nonthermal Radiation at Accretion Shocks in the Outer Regions of Galaxy Clusters

Cosmology models predict that external accretion shocks form in the outer region of galaxy clusters owing to supersonic gas infall from filaments and voids in the cosmic web. They are characterized by high sonic and Alfvénic Mach numbers, M s ∼ 10–102 and M A ∼ 102–103, and propagate into weakly magnetized plasmas of β ≡ P g /P B ≳ 102. Although strong accretion shocks are expected to be efficient accelerators of cosmic rays (CRs), nonthermal signatures of shock-accelerated CRs around clusters have not been confirmed, and detailed acceleration physics at such shocks has yet to be understood. In this study, we first establish through two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations that at strong high-β shocks electrons can be pre-energized via stochastic Fermi acceleration owing to the ion Weibel instability in the shock transition region, possibly followed by injection into diffusive shock acceleration. Hence, we propose that the models derived from conventional thermal leakage injection may be employed for the acceleration of electrons and ions at accretion shocks as well. Applying these analytic models to numerical shock zones identified in structure formation simulations, we estimate nonthermal radiation, such as synchrotron and inverse Compton (IC) emission due to CR electrons and π 0-decay γ-rays due to CR protons, around simulated clusters. Our models with injection parameter Q ≈ 3.5–3.8 predict synthetic synchrotron maps, which seem consistent with recent radio observations of the Coma Cluster. However, the detection of nonthermal IC X-rays and γ-rays from accretion shocks would be quite challenging. We suggest that the proposed analytic models may be adopted as generic recipes for CR production at cosmological shocks.

CALSAGOS: Clustering algorithms applied to galaxies in overdense systems

ABSTRACT In this paper, we present CALSAGOS: Clustering ALgorithmS Applied to Galaxies in Overdense Systems which is a PYTHON package developed to select cluster members and to search, find, and identify substructures. CALSAGOS is based on clustering algorithms, and was developed to be used in spectroscopic and photometric samples. To test the performance of CALSAGOS, we use the S-PLUS’s mock catalogues, and we found an error of 1–6 per cent on member selection depending on the function that is used. Besides, CALSAGOS has a F1-score of 0.8, a precision of 85 per cent and a completeness of 100 per cent in the identification of substructures in the outer regions of galaxy clusters (r > r200). The F1-score, precision, and completeness of CALSAGOS fall to 0.5, 75, and 40 per cent when we consider all substructure identifications (inner and outer) due to the function that searches, finds, and identifies the substructures works in 2D, and cannot resolve the substructures projected over others.

On the Efficiency of Thermal Conduction in Galaxy Clusters

Abstract Galaxy clusters host a large reservoir of diffuse plasma with radially varying temperature profiles. The efficiency of thermal conduction in the intracluster medium (ICM) is complicated by the existence of turbulence and magnetic fields, and has received a lot of attention in the literature. Previous studies suggest that the magnetothermal instability developed in outer regions of galaxy clusters would drive magnetic field lines to be preferentially radial, resulting in efficient conduction along the radial direction. Using a series of spherically symmetric simulations, here we investigate the impact of thermal conduction on the observed temperature distributions in the outer regions of three massive clusters, and find that thermal conduction substantially modifies the ICM temperature profile. Within 3 Gyr, the gas temperature at a representative radius of 0.3r 500 typically decreases by ∼10%–20% and the average temperature slope between 0.3r 500 and r 500 drops by ∼30%–40%, indicating that the observed ICM would not stay in a long-term equilibrium state in the presence of thermal conduction. However, X-ray observations show that the outer regions of massive clusters have remarkably similar radially declining temperature profiles, suggesting that they should be quite stable. Our study thus suggests that the effective conductivity along the radial direction must be suppressed below the Spitzer value by a factor of 10 or more, unless additional heating sources offset conductive cooling and maintain the observed temperature distributions. Our study provides smoking-gun evidence for the suppression of parallel conduction along magnetic field lines in low-collisionality plasmas by kinetic mirror or whistler instabilities.

Detail studies of the physical properties in the outer regions of galaxy clusters using Suzaku observations

A detailed physical analysis of five nearby galaxy clusters using Suzaku observationsis presented. The low and stable level of the instrumental background at large radii facilitate the determination of the main physical characteristics in clusters at the virial radius. The temperatures, metal abundances, and entropy profiles have been constructed out to the outskirts of the clusters. The temperature profiles all display the same shape, with a negative gradient towards to the center and a flat outer plateau. The strong temperature gradients in the central parts of the clusters are usually associated with strong peaks of the surface brightness profiles. The temperature systematically decrease outward from the central regions, by a factor of three at and slightly beyond the cluster outskirts. The temperature profiles are compared with profiles predicted by N-body and hydrodynamical simulations obtained using several numerical algorithms. The slopes in the observed and simulated temperature profiles are consistent with each other in the cluster outskirts. The central regions of the clusters are characterized by low entropy and high metallicity. The possible influence of cool cores on the cluster outskirts is also discussed. The total mass profiles were determined using the observed gas-density and temperature profiles, assuming hydrostatic equilibriumand spherical symmetry. The gas-density profiles were fitted using an improved three-dimensional model to fit the inner and outer regions of the cluster independently. The total mass profiles were described using an NFW model out to R 200. The measurements show clear evidence for universality of the total mass distribution. The scaled mass profiles in units of R 200 and M 200 display a dispersion of ~15% at 0.1R 200. The fraction of gas out to R 200 was also found.

WEAK GRAVITATIONAL LENSING AS A PROBE OF PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF SUBSTRUCTURES IN DARK MATTER HALOS

We propose a novel method to select satellite galaxies in outer regions of galaxy groups or clusters using weak gravitational lensing. The method is based on the theoretical expectation that the tangential shear pattern around satellite galaxies would appear with negative values at an offset distance from the center of the main halo. We can thus locate the satellite galaxies statistically with an offset distance of several lensing smoothing scales by using the standard reconstruction of surface mass density maps from weak lensing observation. We test the idea using high-resolution cosmological simulations. We show that subhalos separated from the center of the host halo are successfully located even without assuming the position of the center. For a number of such subhalos, the characteristic mass and offset length can be also estimated on a statistical basis. We perform a Fisher analysis to show how well upcoming weak lensing surveys can constrain the mass density profile of satellite galaxies. In the case of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope with a sky coverage of 20,000 square degrees, the mass of the member galaxies in the outer region of galaxy clusters can be constrained with an accuracy of ~0.1 dex for galaxy clusters with mass 10^14 Msun/h at z=0.15. Finally we explore the detectability of tidal stripping features for subhalos having a wide range of masses of 10^11-10^13 Msun/h.

X-ray mapping the outer regions of galaxy clusters at z = 0.23 and 0.45

The thermal, chemical, and kinematic properties of the potentially multi-phase circum/inter-galactic medium at the virial radii of galaxy clusters remain largely uncertain. We present an X-ray study of Abell 2246 and GMBCG J255.34805+64.23661 (z=0.23 and 0.45), two foreground clusters of the UV-bright QSO HS 1700+6416, based on 240 ks Chandra/ACIS-I observations. We detect enhanced diffuse X-ray emission to the projected distances beyond r_{200} radii of these two clusters. The large-scale X-ray emission is consistent with being azimuthally symmetric at the projected radii of the QSO (0.36 and 0.8 times the radii of the two clusters). Assuming a spherical symmetry, we obtain the de-projected temperature and density profiles of the X-ray-emitting gas. Excluding the cool cores that are detected, we find that the mean temperature of the hot gas is about 4.0 keV for Abell 2246 and 5.5 keV for GMBCG J255.34805+64.23661, although there are indications for temperature drop at large radii. From these results, we can estimate the density and pressure distributions of the hot gas along the QSO sightline. We further infer the radial entropy profile of Abell 2246 and compare it with the one expected from purely gravitational hierarchical structure formation. This comparison shows that the ICM in the outer region of the clusters is likely in a clumpy and multi-phased state. These results, together with the upcoming HST/COS observations of the QSO sightline, will enable a comprehensive investigation of the multi-phase medium associated with the clusters.

The gas distribution in the outer regions of galaxy clusters

We present the analysis of a local (z = 0.04 - 0.2) sample of 31 galaxy clusters with the aim of measuring the density of the X-ray emitting gas in cluster outskirts. We compare our results with numerical simulations to set constraints on the azimuthal symmetry and gas clumping in the outer regions of galaxy clusters. We exploit the large field-of-view and low instrumental background of ROSAT/PSPC to trace the density of the intracluster gas out to the virial radius. We perform a stacking of the density profiles to detect a signal beyond r200 and measure the typical density and scatter in cluster outskirts. We also compute the azimuthal scatter of the profiles with respect to the mean value to look for deviations from spherical symmetry. Finally, we compare our average density and scatter profiles with the results of numerical simulations. As opposed to some recent Suzaku results, and confirming previous evidence from ROSAT and Chandra, we observe a steepening of the density profiles beyond \sim r500. Comparing our density profiles with simulations, we find that non-radiative runs predict too steep density profiles, whereas runs including additional physics and/or treating gas clumping are in better agreement with the observed gas distribution. We report for the first time the high-confidence detection of a systematic difference between cool-core and non-cool core clusters beyond \sim 0.3r200, which we explain by a different distribution of the gas in the two classes. Beyond \sim r500, galaxy clusters deviate significantly from spherical symmetry, with only little differences between relaxed and disturbed systems. We find good agreement between the observed and predicted scatter profiles, but only when the 1% densest clumps are filtered out in the simulations. [Abridged]

The outer regions of galaxy clusters: Chandra constraints on the X-ray surface brightness

(Abridged version) We study the properties of the X-ray surface brightness profiles in a sample of galaxy clusters that were observed with Chandra and have emission detectable with a signal-to-noise ratio higher than 2 at a radius beyond R500 ~ 0.7 R200. Our study aims to measure the slopes of the X-ray surface brightness and of the gas density profiles in the outskirts of massive clusters. These constraints are compared to similar results obtained from observations and numerical simulations of the temperature and dark matter density profiles with the intention of presenting a consistent picture of the outer regions of galaxy clusters. We extract the surface brightness profiles Sb(r) of 52 X-ray luminous galaxy clusters at z>0.3 from X-ray exposures obtained with Chandra. We estimate R200 using both a beta-model that reproduces Sb(r) and scaling relations from the literature. The two methods converge to comparable values. We determine the radius, R_S2N, at which the signal-to-noise ratio is larger than 2 and select the objects in the sample that satisfy the criterion R_S2N/R200 > 0.7. For the eleven selected objects, we model with a power-law the behaviour of Sb(r). We measure a consistent steepening of the Sb(r) profile moving outward from 0.4 R200, where an average slope of -3.6 (sigma=0.8) is estimated. At R200, we evaluate a slope of -4.3 (sigma=0.9) that implies a slope in the gas density profile of -2.6 and a predicted mean value of the surface brightness in the 0.5-2 band of 2e-12 erg/s/cm2/deg2. Combined with estimates of the outer slope of the gas temperature profile and expectations about the dark matter distribution, these measurements allow us to describe properly how X-ray luminous clusters behave out to the virial radius.

XMM‐NewtonEPIC Background Modeling for Extended Sources

We use XMM-Newton blank-sky and closed-cover background data to explore background subtraction methods for large extended sources filling the EPIC field of view, such as nearby galaxy clusters, for which local background estimation is difficult. In particular, we investigate the uncertainties of the background modeling in the 0.8-7.0 keV band that affect cluster analyses. To model the background, we have constructed composite data sets from the blank-sky observations and compared them to the individual blank-sky observations to evaluate the modeling error. Our results apply to data obtained with thin and medium optical filters and in full frame and extended full frame modes. As expected, the modeling uncertainty is determined by how the EPIC background flares are filtered. We find that to keep this uncertainty tolerable, one has to use a much more restrictive filter than that commonly applied. In particular, because flares have highly variable spectra, not all of them are identified by filtering the E > 10 keV light curve. We tried using the outer part of the EPIC field of view for monitoring the background in a softer band (1-5 keV). We find that one needs to discard the time periods when either the hard-band or the soft-band rate exceeds the nominal value by more than 20% in order to limit the 90% CL background uncertainty to between ±5% at E = 4-7 keV and ±20% at E = 0.8-1 keV, for both MOS and PN. This compares to a 10%-30% respective PN uncertainty when only the hard-band light curve is used for filtering, and to a 15%-45% PN uncertainty when applying the commonly used 2-3 σ filtering method. Adding such a soft-band filter on average results in only a 5%-10% reduction of the useful exposure time. We illustrate our method on the nearby cluster A1795. The above background uncertainties convert into systematic temperature uncertainties between about ±1% at r = 3'-4' and ±20%-25% (about ±1 keV for A1795) at r = 10'-15'. For comparison, the commonly applied 2-3 σ clipping of the hard-band light curve misses a significant number of flares, rendering the temperatures beyond r = 10' unconstrained. Thus, the background uncertainties do not prohibit the EPIC temperature profile analysis of low-brightness regions, such as outer regions of galaxy clusters, provided a conservative flare filtering such as the double-filtering method with ±20% limits is used.

Caustic and Weak-Lensing Estimators of Galaxy Cluster Masses

There are only two methods for estimating the mass distribution in the outer regions of galaxy clusters, where virial equilibrium does not hold: weak gravitational lensing and identification of caustics in redshift space. For the first time, we apply both methods to three clusters: A2390, MS1358 and Cl 0024. The two measures are in remarkably good agreement out to ~2 Mpc/h from the cluster centers. This result demonstrates that the caustic technique is a valuable complement to weak lensing. With a few tens of redshifts per (Mpc/h)^2 within the cluster, the caustic method is applicable for any z<~0.5.

Numerical modelling of gamma radiation from galaxy clusters

We investigate the spatial and spectral properties of non-thermal emission from clusters of galaxies at γ-ray energies. We estimate the radiation flux between 10 keV and 10 TeV due to inverse-Compton (IC) emission, π 0 -decay and non-thermal bremsstrahlung (NTB) from cosmic ray (CR) ions and electrons accelerated at cosmic shocks as well as secondary e = generated in inelastic p-p collisions. We identify two main region of production of non-thermal radiation, namely the core (also bright in the thermal X-ray range) and the outskirts region where accretion shocks occur. We find that IC emission from shock-accelerated CR electrons dominate the emission at the outer regions of galaxy clusters, provided that at least a fraction of a per cent of the shock ram pressure is converted into CR electrons. A clear detection of this component and of its spatial distribution will allow us to probe the cosmic accretion shocks directly. In the cluster core, γ-ray emission above 100 MeV is dominated by the π 0 -decay mechanism. At lower energies, IC emission from secondary e ′ takes over. However, IC emission from shock-accelerated electrons projected on to the cluster core will not be negligible. We emphasize the importance of separating the aforementioned emission components for a correct interpretation of the experimental data and outline a strategy for that purpose. Failure to addresses this issue will produce unsound estimates of the intracluster magnetic field strength and CR ion content. According to our estimate future spaceborne and ground-based γ-ray facilities should be able to measure the whole non-thermal spectrum both in the cluster core and at its outskirts. The importance of such measurements in advancing our understanding of non-thermal processes in the intracluster medium is discussed.

Mass estimation in the outer regions of galaxy clusters

We present a technique for estimating the mass in the outskirts of galaxy clusters where the usual assumption of dynamical equilibrium is not valid. The method assumes that clusters form through hierarchical clustering and requires only galaxy redshifts and positions on the sky. We apply the method to dissipationless cosmological N-body simulations where galaxies form and evolve according to semi-analytic modelling. The method recovers the actual cluster mass profile within a factor of 2 to several megaparsecs from the cluster centre. This error originates from projection effects, sparse sampling, and contamination by foreground and background galaxies. In the absence of velocity biases, this method can provide an estimate of the mass-to-light ratio on scales ∼1–10 h−1 Mpc where this quantity is still poorly known.