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Register a new userDecrease in the Brightness of the Cosmic X-ray and Soft Gamma-ray Background toward Clusters of Galaxies
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We show that Compton scattering by electrons of the hot intergalactic gas in galaxy clusters should lead to peculiar distortions of the cosmic background X-ray and soft gamma-ray radiation - an increase in its brightness at E<60-100 keV and a drop at higher energies. The distortions allow the most important cluster parameters to be measured. The spectral shape of the distortions and its dependence on the gas temperature, optical depth, and surface density distribution law have been studied using Monte Carlo computations and confirmed by analytical estimations. In the cluster frame the maximum of the background decrease due to the recoil effect occurs at ~500-600 keV. The photoionization of H- and He-like iron and nickel ions leads to additional distortions in the background spectrum - a strong absorption line with the threshold at ~9 keV (and also to an absorption jump at ~2 keV for cold clusters). The absorption of intrinsic thermal radiation from the cluster gas by these ions also leads to such lines. In nearby (z<1) clusters the line at ~2 keV is noticeably enhanced by absorption in the colder (~10^6 K) plasma of their peripheral (~3 Mpc) regions; moreover, the absorption line at ~1.3 keV splits off from it. The redshift of distant clusters shifts the absorption lines in the background spectrum (at ~2, ~9, and ~500 keV) to lower energies. Thus, in contrast to the microwave background scattering effect, this effect depends on the cluster redshift z, but in a very peculiar way. When observing clusters at z>1, the effect allows one to determine how the X-ray background evolved and how it was gathered with z. To detect the effect, the accuracy of measurements should reach ~0.1%. We consider the most promising clusters for observing the effect and discuss the techniques whereby the influence of the thermal gas radiation hindering the detection of background distortions should be minimal.
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Fluctuations of the surface brightness of cosmic X-ray background (CXB) carry unique information about faint and low luminosity source populations, which is inaccessible for conventional large-scale structure (LSS) studies based on resolved sources. We used Chandra data of the XBOOTES field ($sim9,mathrm{deg^2}$) to conduct the most accurate measurement to date of the power spectrum of fluctuations of the unresolved CXB on the angular scales of $sim3,$arcsec $-$ $sim17,$arcmin. We find that at sub-arcmin angular scales, the power spectrum is consistent with the AGN shot noise, without much need for any significant contribution from their one-halo term. This is consistent with the theoretical expectation that low-luminosity AGN reside alone in their dark matter halos. However, at larger angular scales we detect a significant LSS signal above the AGN shot noise. Its power spectrum, obtained after subtracting the AGN shot noise, follows a power law with the slope of $-0.8pm0.1$ and its amplitude is much larger than what can be plausibly explained by the two-halo term of AGN. We demonstrate that the detected LSS signal is produced by unresolved clusters and groups of galaxies. For the flux limit of the XBOOTES survey, their flux-weighted mean redshift equals $left<zright>sim0.3$, and the mean temperature of their intracluster medium (ICM), $left<Tright>approx 1.4$ keV, corresponds to the mass of $M_{500} sim 10^{13.5},mathrm{M}_odot$. The power spectrum of CXB fluctuations carries information about the redshift distribution of these objects and the spatial structure of their ICM on the linear scales of up to $sim$Mpc, i.e. of the order of the virial radius.
We study the surface brightness fluctuations of the cosmic X-ray background (CXB) using Chandra data of XBOOTES. After masking out resolved sources we compute the power spectrum of fluctuations of the unresolved CXB for angular scales from ~2 arcsec to ~3 deg. The non-trivial large-scale structure (LSS) signal dominates over the shot-noise of unresolved point sources at all scales above ~1 arcmin and is produced mainly by the intracluster medium (ICM) of unresolved clusters and groups of galaxies, as shown in our previous publication. The shot-noise-subtracted power spectrum of CXB fluctuations has a power-law shape with the slope of $Gamma = 0.96 pm 0.06$. Its energy spectrum is well described by the redshifted emission spectrum of optically-thin plasma with the best-fit temperature of $T approx 1.3$ keV and the best-fit redshift of $z approx 0.40$. They are in good agreement with theoretical expectations based on the X-ray luminosity function and scaling relations of clusters. From these values we estimate the typical mass and luminosity of the objects responsible for CXB fluctuations, $M_{500} sim 10^{13.6},{rm M}_{odot}/h$ and $L_{0.5-2.0,{rm keV}} sim 10^{42.5}$ erg/s. On the other hand, the flux-weighted mean temperature and redshift of resolved clusters are $T approx 2.4$ keV and $z approx 0.23$, confirming that fluctuations of unresolved CXB are caused by cooler (i.e. less massive) and more distant clusters, as expected. We show that the power spectrum shape is sensitive to the ICM structure all the way to the outskirts, out to $sim{rm few}times R_{500}$. We also look for possible contribution of the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) to the observed CXB fluctuations. Our results underline the significant diagnostics potential of the CXB fluctuation analysis in studying the ICM structure in clusters.
The Fermi gamma-ray satellite has recently detected gamma-ray emissions from radio galaxy cores. From these samples, we first examine the correlation between the luminosities at 5 GHz, L_{5GHz}, and at 0.1-10 GeV, L_{gamma}, of these gamma-ray loud radio galaxies. We find that the correlation is significant with L_{gamma} propto L_{5GHz}^{1.16} based on a partial correlation analysis. Using this correlation and the radio luminosity function (RLF) of radio galaxies, we further explore the contribution of gamma-ray loud radio galaxies to the unresolved extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGRB). The gamma-ray luminosity function is obtained by normalizing the RLF to reproduce the source count distribution of the Fermi gamma-ray loud radio galaxies. We find that gamma-ray loud radio galaxies will explain ~25% of the unresolved Fermi EGRB flux above 100 MeV and will also make a significant contribution to the EGRB in the 1-30 MeV energy band. Since blazars explain 22% of the EGRB above 100 MeV, radio loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs) population explains ~47% of the unresolved EGRB. We further make an interpretation on the origin of the EGRB. The observed EGRB spectrum at 0.2-100 GeV does not show an absorption signature by the extragalactic background light. Thus, the dominant population of the origin of EGRB at very high energy (>30 GeV) might be nearby gamma-ray emitting sources or sources with very hard gamma-ray spectrum.
Current theories predict relativistic hadronic particle populations in clusters of galaxies in addition to the already observed relativistic leptons. In these scenarios hadronic interactions give rise to neutral pions which decay into $gamma$ rays, that are potentially observable with the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi space telescope. We present a joint likelihood analysis searching for spatially extended $gamma$-ray emission at the locations of 50 galaxy clusters in 4 years of Fermi-LAT data under the assumption of the universal cosmic-ray model proposed by Pinzke & Pfrommer (2010). We find an excess at a significance of $2.7sigma$ which upon closer inspection is however correlated to individual excess emission towards three galaxy clusters: Abell 400, Abell 1367 and Abell 3112. We discuss these cases in detail and conservatively attribute the emission to unmodeled background (for example, radio galaxies within the clusters). Through the combined analysis of 50 clusters we exclude hadronic injection efficiencies in simple hadronic models above 21% and establish limits on the cosmic-ray to thermal pressure ratio within the virial radius, $R_{200}$, to be below 1.2-1.4% depending on the morphological classification. In addition we derive new limits on the $gamma$-ray flux from individual clusters in our sample.
Multiwavelength observations suggest that clusters are reservoirs of vast amounts relativistic electrons and positrons that are either injected into and accelerated directly in the intra-cluster medium, or produced as secondary pairs by cosmic ray ions scattering on ambient protons. In these possible scenarios gamma rays are produced either through electrons upscattering low-energy photons or by decay of neutral pions produced by hadronic interactions. In addition, the high mass-to-light ratios in clusters in combination with considerable Dark Matter (DM) overdensities makes them interesting targets for indirect DM searches with gamma rays. The resulting signals are different from known point sources or from diffuse emission and could possibly be detected with the Fermi-LAT. Both WIMP annihilation/decay spectra and cosmic ray induced emission are determined by universal parameters, which make a combined statistical likelihood analysis feasible. We present initial results of this analysis leading to limits on the DM annihilation cross section or decay time and on the hadron injection efficiency.
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