MINOT: Modeling the intracluster medium (non-)thermal content and observable prediction tools

Abstract

In the past decade, the observations of diffuse radio synchrotron emission toward galaxy clusters revealed cosmic-ray (CR) electrons and magnetic fields on megaparsec scales. However, their origin remains poorly understood, and several models have been discussed in the literature. CR protons are also expected to accumulate during the formation of clusters and probably contribute to the production of these high-energy electrons. In order to understand the physics of CRs in clusters, combining of observations at various wavelengths is particularly relevant. The exploitation of such data requires using a self-consistent approach including both the thermal and the nonthermal components, so that it is capable of predicting observables associated with the multiwavelength probes at play, in particular in the radio, millimeter, X-ray, and gamma-ray bands. We develop and describe such a self-consistent modeling framework, called MINOT (modeling the intracluster medium (non-)thermal content and observable prediction tools) and make this tool available to the community. The multiwavelength observables are computed based on the relevant physical process, according to the cluster location, and based on the sampling defined by the user. We describe the implementation of MINOT and how to use it. We also discuss the different assumptions and approximations that are involved and provide various examples regarding the production of output products at different wavelengths. As an illustration, we model the clusters A1795, A2142, and A2255 and compare the MINOT predictions to literature data. MINOT can be used to model the cluster thermal and nonthermal physical processes for a wide variety of datasets in the radio, millimeter, X-ray, and gamma-ray bands, as well as the neutrino emission. [abridged]