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nIFTy Galaxy Cluster simulations VI: The dynamical imprint of substructure on gaseous cluster outskirts

Power, C, Elahi, PJ, Welker, C, Knebe, A, Pearce, FR, Yepes, G, Dave, R, Kay, ST, McCarthy, IG, Puchwein, E, Borgani, S, Cunnama, D, Cui, W and Schaye, J (2019) nIFTy Galaxy Cluster simulations VI: The dynamical imprint of substructure on gaseous cluster outskirts. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 491 (3). pp. 3923-3936. ISSN 0035-8711

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Abstract

Galaxy cluster outskirts mark the transition region from the mildly non-linear cosmic web to the highly non-linear, virialised, cluster interior. It is in this transition region that the intra-cluster medium (ICM) begins to influence the properties of accreting galaxies and groups, as ram pressure impacts a galaxy's cold gas content and subsequent star formation rate. Conversely, the thermodynamical properties of the ICM in this transition region should also feel the influence of accreting substructure (i.e. galaxies and groups), whose passage can drive shocks. In this paper, we use a suite of cosmological hydrodynamical zoom simulations of a single galaxy cluster, drawn from the nIFTy comparison project, to study how the dynamics of substructure accreted from the cosmic web influences the thermodynamical properties of the ICM in the cluster's outskirts. We demonstrate how features evident in radial profiles of the ICM (e.g. gas density and temperature) can be linked to strong shocks, transient and short-lived in nature, driven by the passage of substructure. The range of astrophysical codes and galaxy formation models in our comparison are broadly consistent in their predictions (e.g. agreeing when and where shocks occur, but differing in how strong shocks will be); this is as we would expect of a process driven by large-scale gravitational dynamics and strong, inefficiently radiating, shocks. This suggests that mapping such shock structures in the ICM in a cluster's outskirts (via e.g. radio synchrotron emission) could provide a complementary measure of its recent merger and accretion history.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2019 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
Uncontrolled Keywords: astro-ph.CO; astro-ph.CO
Subjects: Q Science > QB Astronomy
Q Science > QC Physics
Divisions: Astrophysics Research Institute
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Related URLs:
Date Deposited: 30 Jan 2020 16:36
Last Modified: 04 Sep 2021 08:00
DOI or ID number: 10.1093/mnras/stz3176
URI: https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/12156
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