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arXiv · 1802.09458

Multi-wavelength mock observations of the WHIM in a simulated galaxy cluster

Abstract

About half of the expected total baryon budget in the local Universe is `missing'. Hydrodynamical simulations suggest that most of the missing baryons are located in a mildly overdense, warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM), which is difficult to be detected at most wavelengths. In this paper we explore multi-wavelength synthetic observations of a massive galaxy cluster developed in a full Eulerian-AMR cosmological simulation. A novel numerical procedure is applied on the outputs of the simulation, which are post-processed with a full-radiative transfer code that allows to compute the change of the intensity at any frequency along the null-geodesic of photons. We compare the emission from the whole inter-galactic medium (IGM) and from the WHIM component (defined as the gas with a temperature in the range $10^5-10^7$ K) at three observational bands associated to thermal X-rays, thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, and radio emission. The synthetic maps produced by this procedure could be directly compared with existing observational maps and could be used as a guide for future observations with forthcoming instruments. The analysis of the different emissions associated to a high-resolution galaxy cluster is in broad agreement with previous simulated and observational estimates of both gas components.

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Susana Planelles, Petar Mimica, Vicent Quilis, Carlos Cuesta-Martínez. 2018-02-26. Multi-wavelength mock observations of the WHIM in a simulated galaxy cluster. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras%2Fsty527

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