Cosmological constraints on the gas depletion factor in galaxy clusters

Abstract

The evolution of the X-ray emitting gas mass fraction ($f_{gas}$) in massive galaxy clusters can be used as an independent cosmological tool to probe the expansion history of the Universe. Its use, however, depends upon a crucial quantity, i.e., the depletion factor $\gamma$, which corresponds to the ratio by which $f_{gas}$ is depleted with respect to the universal baryonic mean. This quantity is not directly observed and hydrodynamical simulations performed in a specific cosmological model (e.g., a flat $\Lambda$CDM cosmology) have been used to calibrate it. In this work, we obtain for the first time self-consistent observational constraints on the gas depletion factor combining 40 X-ray emitting gas mass fraction measurements and luminosity distance measurements from type Ia supernovae. Using Gaussian Processes to reconstruct a possible redshift evolution of $\gamma$, we find no evidence for such evolution, which confirms the current results from hydrodynamical simulations. Moreover, our constraints on $\gamma$ can be seen as a data prior for cosmological analyses on different cosmological models. The current measurements are systematic limited, so future improvements will depend heavily on a better mass calibration of galaxy clusters and their measured density profiles.