We review recent progress in the description of the formation and evolution of galaxy clusters in a cosmological context by using numerical simulations. We focus our presentation on the comparison between simulated and observed X-ray properties, whil
e we will also discuss numerical predictions on properties of the galaxy population in clusters. Many of the salient observed properties of clusters, such as X-ray scaling relations, radial profiles of entropy and density of the intracluster gas, and radial distribution of galaxies are reproduced quite well. In particular, the outer regions of cluster at radii beyond about 10 per cent of the virial radius are quite regular and exhibit scaling with mass remarkably close to that expected in the simplest case in which only the action of gravity determines the evolution of the intra-cluster gas. However, simulations generally fail at reproducing the observed cool-core structure of clusters: simulated clusters generally exhibit a significant excess of gas cooling in their central regions, which causes an overestimate of the star formation and incorrect temperature and entropy profiles. The total baryon fraction in clusters is below the mean universal value, by an amount which depends on the cluster-centric distance and the physics included in the simulations, with interesting tensions between observed stellar and gas fractions in clusters and predictions of simulations. Besides their important implications for the cosmological application of clusters, these puzzles also point towards the important role played by additional physical processes, beyond those already included in the simulations. We review the role played by these processes, along with the difficulty for their implementation, and discuss the outlook for the future progress in numerical modeling of clusters.
We discuss the central role played by the X-ray study of hot baryons within galaxy clusters to reconstruct the assembly of cosmic structures and to trace the past history of star formation and accretion onto supermassive Black Holes (BHs). We shortly
review the progress in this field contributed by the current generation of X-ray telescopes. Then, we focus on the outstanding scientific questions that have been opened by observations carried out in the last years and that represent the legacy of Chandra and XMM: (a) When and how is entropy injected into the inter-galactic medium (IGM)? (b) What is the history of metal enrichment of the IGM? (c) What physical mechanisms determine the presence of cool cores in galaxy clusters? (d) How is the appearance of proto-clusters at z~2 related to the peak of star formation activity and BH accretion? We show that a highly efficient observational strategy to address these questions is to carry out a large-area X-ray survey, reaching a sensitivity comparable to that of deep Chandra and XMM pointings, but extending over several thousands of square degrees. A similar survey can only be carried out with a Wide-Field X-ray Telescope (WFXT), which combines a high survey speed with a sharp PSF across the entire FoV. We emphasize the important synergies that WFXT will have with a number of future ground-based and space telescopes, covering from the radio to the X-ray bands. Finally, we discuss the immense legacy value that such a mission will have for extragalactic astronomy at large.
We analyse the evolution of the Intergalactic Medium (IGM) by means of an extended set of large box size hydrodynamical simulations which include pre-heating. We focus on the properties of the z~2 Lyman-alpha forest and on the population of clusters
and groups of galaxies at z=0. We investigate the distribution of voids in the Lyman-alpha flux and the entropy-temperature relation of galaxy groups, comparing the simulation results to recent data from high-resolution quasar spectra and from X-ray observations. Pre-heating is included through a simple phenomenological prescription, in which at z=4 the entropy of all gas particles, whose overdensity exceeds a threshold value delta_h is increased to a minimum value K_fl. While the entropy level observed in the central regions of galaxy groups requires a fairly strong pre-heating, with K_fl>100 keV cm^2, the void statistics of the Lyman-alpha forest impose that this pre-heating should take place only in relatively high-density regions, in order not to destroy the cold filaments that give rise to the forest. We conclude that any injection of non-gravitational energy in the diffuse baryons should avoid low-density regions at high redshift and/or take place at relatively low redshift.
