No Arabic abstract
While there are many ways to identify substructures in galaxy clusters using different wavelengths, each technique has its own caveat. In this paper, we conduct a detailed substructure search and dynamical state characterisation of Abell 2399, a galaxy cluster in the local Universe ($z sim 0.0579$), by performing a multi-wavelength analysis and testing the results through hydro-dynamical simulations. In particular, we apply a Gaussian Mixture Model to the spectroscopic data from SDSS, WINGS, and Omega WINGS Surveys to identify substructures. We further use public textit{XMM-Newton} data to investigate the intracluster medium (ICM) thermal properties, creating temperature, metallicity, entropy, and pressure maps. Finally, we run hydro-dynamical simulations to constrain the merger stage of this system. The ICM is very asymmetrical and has regions of temperature and pressure enhancement that evidence a recent merging process. The optical substructure analysis retrieves the two main X-ray concentrations. The temperature, entropy, and pressure are smaller in the secondary clump than in the main clump. On the other hand, its metallicity is considerably higher. This result can be explained by the scenario found by the hydro-dynamical simulations where the secondary clump passed very near to the centre of the main cluster possibly causing the galaxies of that region to release more metals through the increase of ram-pressure stripping.16
We study the dynamics of Abell 370 (A370), a highly massive Hubble Frontier Fields galaxy cluster, using self-consistent three-dimensional N-body/hydrodynamical simulations. Our simulations are constrained by X-ray, optical spectroscopic and gravitational lensing, and Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect observations. Analyzing archival Chandra observations of A370 and comparing the X-ray morphology to the latest gravitational lensing mass reconstruction, we find offsets of ~30 kpc and ~100 kpc between the two X-ray surface brightness peaks and their nearest mass surface density peaks, suggesting that it is a merging system, in agreement with previous studies. Based on our dedicated binary cluster merger simulations, we find that initial conditions of the two progenitors with virial masses of 1.7 x 10^(15) M_sun and 1.6 x 10^(15) M_sun, an infall velocity of 3500 km/s, and an impact parameter of 100 kpc can explain the positions and the offsets between the peaks of the X-ray emission and mass surface density, the amplitude of the integrated SZ signal, and the observed relative line-of-sight velocity. Moreover, our best model reproduces the observed velocity dispersion of cluster member galaxies, which supports the large total mass of A370 derived from weak lensing. Our simulations suggest that A370 is a major merger after the second core passage in the infalling phase, just before the third core passage. In this phase, the gas has not settled down in the gravitational potential well of the cluster, which explains why A370 does not follow closely the galaxy cluster scaling relations.
We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array measurements of the `Cosmic Seagull, a strongly magnified galaxy at z=2.7779 behind the Bullet Cluster. We report CO(3-2) and continuum 344~$mu$m (rest-frame) data at one of the highest differential magnifications ever recorded at submillimeter wavelengths ($mu$ up to ~50), facilitating a characterization of the kinematics of a rotational curve in great detail (at ~620 pc resolution in the source plane). We find no evidence for a decreasing rotation curve, from which we derive a dynamical mass of ($6.3pm0.7)times10^{10} M_{odot}$ within $r = 2.6pm0.1$ kpc. The discovery of a third, unpredicted, image provides key information for a future improvement of the lensing modeling of the Bullet Cluster and allows a measure of the stellar mass, $1.6^{+1.9}_{-0.86}times10^{10} M_{odot}$, unaffected by strong differential magnification. The baryonic mass is is expected to be dominated by the molecular gas content ($f_{gas} leq 80 pm 20$ %) based on an $M_{H_2}$ mass estimated from the difference between dynamical and stellar masses. The star formation rate is estimated via the spectral energy distribution ($SFR = 190 pm 10 M_{odot}/yr$), implying a molecular gas depletion time of $0.25pm0.08$ Gyr.
For the first time, we explore the dynamics of the central region of a galaxy cluster within $r_{500}sim 600h^{-1}$~kpc from its center by combining optical and X-ray spectroscopy. We use (1) the caustic technique that identifies the cluster substructures and their galaxy members with optical spectroscopic data, and (2) the X-ray redshift fitting procedure that estimates the redshift distribution of the intracluster medium (ICM). We use the spatial and redshift distributions of the galaxies and of the X-ray emitting gas to associate the optical substructures to the X-ray regions. When we apply this approach to Abell 85 (A85), a complex dynamical structure of A85 emerges from our analysis: a galaxy group, with redshift $z=0.0509 pm 0.0021$ is passing through the cluster center along the line of sight dragging part of the ICM present in the cluster core; two additional groups, at redshift $z=0.0547 pm 0.0022$ and $z=0.0570 pm 0.0020$, are going through the cluster in opposite directions, almost perpendicularly to the line of sight, and have substantially perturbed the dynamics of the ICM. An additional group in the outskirts of A85, at redshift $z=0.0561 pm 0.0023$, is associated to a secondary peak of the X-ray emission, at redshift $z=0.0583^{+0.0039}_{-0.0047}$. Although our analysis and results on A85 need to be confirmed by high-resolution spectroscopy, they demonstrate how our new approach can be a powerful tool to constrain the formation history of galaxy clusters by unveiling their central and surrounding structures.
In this work, we report on a detailed simulation of the Bullet Cluster (1E0657-56) merger, including magnetohydrodynamics, plasma cooling, and adaptive mesh refinement. We constrain the simulation with data from gravitational lensing reconstructions and 0.5 - 2 keV Chandra X-ray flux map, then compare the resulting model to higher energy X-ray fluxes, the extracted plasma temperature map, Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect measurements, and cluster halo radio emission. We constrain the initial conditions by minimizing the chi-squared figure of merit between the full 2D observational data sets and the simulation, rather than comparing only a few features such as the location of subcluster centroids, as in previous studies. A simple initial configuration of two triaxial clusters with NFW dark matter profiles and physically reasonable plasma profiles gives a good fit to the current observational morphology and X-ray emissions of the merging clusters. There is no need for unconventional physics or extreme infall velocities. The study gives insight into the astrophysical processes at play during a galaxy cluster merger, and constrains the strength and coherence length of the magnetic fields. The techniques developed here to create realistic, stable, triaxial clusters, and to utilize the totality of the 2D image data, will be applicable to future simulation studies of other merging clusters. This approach of constrained simulation, when applied to well-measured systems, should be a powerful complement to present tools for understanding X-ray clusters and their magnetic fields, and the processes governing their formation.
The analysis of the cluster environment is a valuable instrument to investigate the origin of AGN and star-forming galaxies gas fuelling and trigger mechanisms. To this purpose, we present a detailed analysis of the point-like X-ray sources in the Bullet cluster field. Thanks to $sim600$ ks Chandra observations, we produced a catalogue of 381 X-ray point sources up to a distance of $sim$1.5 virial radius and with flux limits $sim1times10^{-16}$ and $sim8times10^{-16}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ in the 0.5-2 keV and 2-10 keV bands, respectively. We found a strong (up to a factor 1.5-2) and significant ($ge$4$sigma$) over-density in the full region studied $0.3R_{200}<R<1.5R_{200}$. We identified optical and infrared counterparts for $sim$84% and $sim$48% of the X-ray sources, respectively. We obtained new spectroscopic redshifts for 106 X-ray sources. Spectroscopic and photometric redshifts of optical and infrared sources have been also collected, and these sources were used as ancillary samples. We find that the over-density in the region $0.3R_{200}<R<R_{200}$ is likely due to X-ray AGN (mostly obscured) and star-forming galaxies both associated to the cluster, while in the more external region it is likely mostly due to background AGN. The fraction of cluster galaxies hosting an X-ray detected AGN is 1.0$pm$0.4$%$, nearly constant with the radius, a fraction similar to that reported in other clusters of galaxies at similar redshift. The fraction of X-ray bright AGN (L$_{2-10keV}$$>$10$^{43}$ ergs s$^{-1}$) in the region $0.3R_{200}<R<R_{200}$ is $0.5^{+0.6}_{-0.2}$$%$, higher than that in other clusters at similar redshift and more similar to the AGN fraction in the field. Finally, the spatial distributions of AGN and star-forming galaxies, selected also thanks to their infrared emission, appear similar, thus suggesting that both are triggered by the same mechanism.