Scaling properties of galaxy cluster observables with mass provide central insights into the processes shaping clusters. Calibrating proxies for cluster mass will be crucial to cluster cosmology with upcoming surveys like eROSITA and Euclid. The rece
nt Planck results led to suggestions that X-ray masses might be biased low by $sim!40$ %, more than previously considered. We extend the direct calibration of the weak lensing -- X-ray mass scaling towards lower masses (as low as $1!times!10^{14},mathrm{M}_{odot}$) in a sample representative of the $z!sim!0.4$--$0.5$ population. We investigate the scaling of MMT/Megacam weak lensing (WL) masses for $8$ clusters at $0.39!leq!z!leq!0.80$ as part of the emph{400d} WL programme with hydrostatic textit{Chandra} X-ray masses as well as those based on the proxies, e.g. $Y_{mathrm{X}}!=!T_{mathrm{X}}M_{mathrm{gas}}$. Overall, we find good agreement between WL and X-ray masses, with different mass bias estimators all consistent with zero. Subdividing the sample, we find the high-mass subsample to show no significant mass bias while for the low-mass subsample, there is a bias towards overestimated X-ray masses at the $sim!2sigma$ level for some mass proxies. The overall scatter in the mass-mass scaling relations is surprisingly low. Neither observation can be traced back to the parameter settings in the WL analysis. We do not find evidence for a strong ($sim!40$ %) underestimate in the X-ray masses, as suggested to reconcile Planck cluster counts and cosmological constraints. For high-mass clusters, our measurements are consistent with studies in the literature. The mass dependent bias, significant at $sim!2sigma$, may hint at a physically different cluster population (less relaxed clusters with more substructure and mergers); or it may be due to small number statistics.
Until recently, only about 10% of the total intracluster gas volume had been studied with high accuracy, leaving a vast region essentially unexplored. This is now changing and a wide area of hot gas physics and chemistry awaits discovery in galaxy cl
uster outskirts. Also, robust large-scale total mass profiles and maps are within reach. First observational and theoretical results in this emerging field have been achieved in recent years with sometimes surprising findings. Here, we summarize and illustrate the relevant underlying physical and chemical processes and review the recent progress in X-ray, Sunyaev--Zeldovich, and weak gravitational lensing observations of cluster outskirts, including also brief discussions of technical challenges and possible future improvements.
Evolution in the mass function of galaxy clusters sensitively traces both the expansion history of the Universe and cosmological structure formation. Robust cluster mass determinations are a key ingredient for a reliable measurement of this evolution
, especially at high redshift. Weak gravitational lensing is a promising tool for, on average, unbiased mass estimates. This weak lensing project aims at measuring reliable weak lensing masses for a complete X-ray selected sample of 36 high redshift (0.35<z<0.9) clusters. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the robustness of the methodology against commonly encountered problems, including pure instrumental effects, the presence of bright (8--9 mag) stars close to the cluster centre, ground based measurements of high-z (z~0.8) clusters, and the presence of massive unrelated structures along the line-sight. We select a subsample of seven clusters observed with MMT/Megacam. Instrumental effects are checked in detail by cross-comparison with an archival CFHT/MegaCam observation. We derive mass estimates for seven clusters by modelling the tangential shear with an NFW profile, in two cases with multiple components to account for projected structures in the line-of-sight. We firmly detect lensing signals from all seven clusters at more than $3.5sigma$ and determine their masses, ranging from $10^{14} M_{odot}$ to $10^{15} M_{odot}$, despite the presence of nearby bright stars. We retrieve the lensing signal of more than one cluster in the CL 1701+6414 field, while apparently observing CL 1701+6414 through a massive foreground filament. We also find a multi-peaked shear signal in CL 1641+4001. Shear structures measured in the MMT and CFHT images of CL 1701+6414 are highly correlated.
We present a detailed investigation of the X-ray luminosity (Lx)-gas temperature (Tvir) relation of the complete X-ray flux-limited sample of the 64 brightest galaxy clusters in the sky (HIFLUGCS). We study the influence of two astrophysical processe
s, active galactic nuclei (AGN) heating and intracluster medium (ICM) cooling, on the Lx-Tvir relation, simultaneously for the first time. We determine best-fit relations for different subsamples using the cool-core strength and the presence of central radio activity as selection criteria. We find the strong cool-core clusters (SCCs) with short cooling times (< 1Gyr)to display the steepest relation (Lx ~ Tvir^{3.33}) and the non-cool-core clusters (NCCs) with long cooling times (> 7.7Gyr) to display the shallowest (Lx ~ Tvir^{2.42}). This has the simple implication that on the high-mass scale (Tvir > 2.5keV) the steepening of the Lx-Tvir relation is mainly due to the cooling of the intracluster medium gas. We propose that ICM cooling and AGN heating are both important in shaping the Lx-Tvir relation but on different length-scales. While our study indicates that ICM cooling dominates on cluster scales (Tvir > 2.5keV), we speculate that AGN heating dominates the scaling relation in poor clusters and groups (Tvir < 2.5keV). The intrinsic scatter about the Lx-Tvir relation in X-ray luminosity for the whole sample is 45.4% and varies from a minimum of 34.8% for weak cool-core clusters to a maximum of 59.4% for clusters with no central radio source. We find that after excising the cooling region, the scatter in the Lx-Tvir relation drops from 45.4% to 39.1%, implying that the cooling region contributes ~ 27% to the overall scatter. Lastly, we find the true SCC fraction to be 25% lower than the observed one and the true normalizations of the Lx-Tvir relations to be lower by 12%, 7%, and 17% for SCC, WCC, and NCC clusters, respectively. [abridged]
The mass function of galaxy clusters at high redshifts is a particularly useful probe to learn about the history of structure formation and constrain cosmological parameters. We aim at deriving reliable masses for a high-redshift, high-luminosity sam
ple of clusters of galaxies selected from the 400d survey of X-ray selected clusters. Here, we will focus on a particular object, CL0030+2618 at z=0.50 Using deep imaging in three passbands with the MEGACAM instrument at MMT, we show that MEGACAM is well-suited for measuring gravitational shear. We detect the weak lensing signal of CL0030+2618 at 5.8 sigma significance, using the aperture mass technique. Furthermore, we find significant tangential alignment of galaxies out to ~10 arcmin or >2r_200 distance from the cluster centre. The weak lensing centre of CL0030+2618 agrees with several X-ray measurements and the position of the brightest cluster galaxy. Finally, we infer a weak lensing virial mass of M_200=7.5 10^{14} M_sun for CL0030+2618. Despite complications by a tentative foreground galaxy group in the line of sight, the X-ray and weak lensing estimates for CL0030+2618 are in remarkable agreement. This study paves the way for the largest weak lensing survey of high-redshift galaxy clusters to date.
We have carried out an intensive study of the AGN heating-ICM cooling network by comparing various cluster parameters of the HIFLUGCS sample to the integrated radio luminosity of the central AGN, L_R, defined as the total synchrotron power between 10
MHz and 15 GHz. We adopt the central cooling time, t_cool, as the diagnostic to ascertain cooling properties of the clusters and classify clusters with t_cool < 1 Gyr as strong cooling core (SCC) clusters, with 1 Gyr < t_cool <7.7 Gyr as weak cooling core (WCC) clusters and with t_cool > 7.7 Gyr as non-cooling core (NCC) clusters. We find 48 out of 64 clusters (75%) contain cluster center radio sources (CCRS) cospatial with or within 50 h^{-1}_{71} kpc of the X-ray peak emission. Further, we find that the probability of finding a CCRS increases from 45% to 67% to 100% for NCC, WCC and SCC clusters, respectively, suggesting an AGN-feedback machinery in SCC clusters which regulates the cooling in the central regions. We find L_R in SCC clusters depends strongly on the cluster scale such that more massive clusters harbor more powerful radio AGN. The same trend is observed between L_R and the classical mass deposition rate, MDR, albeit much stronger, in SCC and partly also in WCC clusters. We also perform correlations of the 2MASS K-band luminosity of the brightest cluster galaxy, L_BCG, with L_R and cluster parameters. We invoke the relation between L_BCG and the black hole mass, M_BH, and find a surprisingly tight correlation between M_BH and L_R for SCC clusters. We find also an excellent correlation of L_BCG with M500 and L_X for the entire sample; however, SCC clusters show a tighter trend in both the cases. We discuss the plausible reasons behind these scaling relations in the context of cooling flows and AGN feedback. [Abridged]
