Preliminary results are presented from the CLEF hydrodynamics simulation, a large (N=2(428)^3 particles within a 200 Mpc/h comoving box) simulation of the LCDM cosmology that includes both radiative cooling and a simple model for galactic feedback. Specifically, we focus on the X-ray properties of the simulated clusters at z=0 and demonstrate a reasonable level of agreement between simulated and observed cluster scaling relations.
We present results from a study of the X-ray cluster population that forms within the CLEF cosmological hydrodynamics simulation, a large N-body/SPH simulation of the Lambda CDM cosmology with radiative cooling, star formation and feedback. The scaled projected temperature and entropy profiles at z=0 are in good agreement with recent high-quality observations of cool core clusters, suggesting that the simulation grossly follows the processes that structure the intracluster medium (ICM) in these objects. Cool cores are a ubiquitous phenomenon in the simulation at low and high redshift, regardless of a clusters dynamical state. This is at odds with the observations and so suggests there is still a heating mechanism missing from the simulation. Using a simple, observable measure of the concentration of the ICM, which correlates with the apparent mass deposition rate in the cluster core, we find a large dispersion within regular clusters at low redshift, but this diminishes at higher redshift, where strong cooling-flow systems are absent in our simulation. Consequently, our results predict that the normalisation and scatter of the luminosity-temperature relation should decrease with redshift; if such behaviour turns out to be a correct representation of X-ray cluster evolution, it will have significant consequences for the number of clusters found at high redshift in X-ray flux-limited surveys.
Clusters of galaxies contain a hot gas, which emits in X-rays. X-ray telescopes such as XMM-Newton allow to study this plasma to obtain information on physical quantities of these objects. We present here some results on the total mass density distribution of clusters obtained with XMM-Newton based on the hydrostatic approach. These results can be compared to models based on cold dark matter. Generally good agreement is found between observations and models. Furthermore we present a study on physical properties of a distant merging cluster of galaxies, which demonstrates the potential of XMM-Newton studies on this class of objects.
The abundance of massive galaxy clusters is a powerful probe of departures from General Relativity (GR) on cosmic scales. Despite current stringent constraints placed by stellar and galactic tests, on larger scales alternative theories of gravity such as $f(R)$ can still work as effective theories. Here we present constraints on two popular models of $f(R)$, Hu-Sawicki and designer, derived from a fully self-consistent analysis of current samples of X-ray selected clusters and accounting for all the covariances between cosmological and astrophysical parameters. Using cluster number counts in combination with recent data from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the CMB lensing potential generated by large scale structures, as well as with other cosmological constraints on the background expansion history and its mean matter density, we obtain the upper bounds $log_{10}|f_{R0}| < 4.79$ and $log_{10}B_0 < 3.75$ at the 95.4 per cent confidence level, for the Hu-Sawicki (with $n=1$) and designer models, respectively. The robustness of our results derives from high quality cluster growth data for the most massive clusters known out to redshifts $z sim 0.5$, a tight control of systematic uncertainties including an accurate and precise mass calibration from weak gravitational lensing data, and the use of the full shape of the halo mass function over the mass range of our data.
The review summarizes present and future applications of galaxy clusters to cosmology with emphasis on nearby X-ray clusters. The discussion includes the density of dark matter, the normalization of the matter power spectrum, neutrino masses, and especially the equation of state of the dark energy, the interaction between dark energy and ordinary matter, gravitational holography, and the effects of extra-dimensions.
The IllustrisTNG project is a new suite of cosmological magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation performed with the Arepo code and updated models for feedback physics. Here we introduce the first two simulations of the series, TNG100 and TNG300, and quantify the stellar mass content of about 4000 massive galaxy groups and clusters ($10^{13} leq M_{rm 200c}/M_{rm sun} leq 10^{15}$) at recent times ($z leq 1$). The richest clusters have half of their total stellar mass bound to satellite galaxies, with the other half being associated with the central galaxy and the diffuse intra-cluster light. The exact ICL fraction depends sensitively on the definition of a central galaxys mass and varies in our most massive clusters between 20 to 40% of the total stellar mass. Haloes of $5times 10^{14}M_{rm sun}$ and above have more diffuse stellar mass outside 100 kpc than within 100 kpc, with power-law slopes of the radial mass density distribution as shallow as the dark matters ( $-3.5 < alpha_{rm 3D} < -3$). Total halo mass is a very good predictor of stellar mass, and vice versa: at $z=0$, the 3D stellar mass measured within 30 kpc scales as $propto (M_{rm 500c})^{0.49}$ with a $sim 0.12$ dex scatter. This is possibly too steep in comparison to the available observational constraints, even though the abundance of TNG less massive galaxies ($< 10^{11}M_{rm sun}$ in stars) is in good agreement with the measured galaxy stellar mass functions at recent epochs. The 3D sizes of massive galaxies fall too on a tight ($sim$0.16 dex scatter) power-law relation with halo mass, with $r^{rm stars}_{rm 0.5} propto (M_{rm 500c})^{0.53}$. Even more fundamentally, halo mass alone is a good predictor for the whole stellar mass profiles beyond the inner few kpc, and we show how on average these can be precisely recovered given a single mass measurement of the galaxy or its halo.