Numerical convergence of physical variables in hydrodynamical simulations of cooling clusters

Abstract

Results from hydrodynamical SPH simulations of galaxy clusters are used to investigate the dependence of the final cluster X-ray properties on the numerical resolution and the assumed models for the physical gas processes. Two different spatially flat cosmological models have been considered: a low-density cold dark matter universe with a vacuum energy density Omega_L=0.7 (LCDM) and a cold+hot dark matter model (CHDM). These simulations first include radiative cooling and then also conversion of cold gas particles into stars. When cold gas particles are allowed to convert into stars the final gas profiles show a well defined core radius and the temperature profiles are nearly flat. For the most massive test cluster in the LCDM model, these simulations show a prominent cooling flow in the cluster core. This cluster was analyzed in detail, running simulations with different star formation methods and increasing numerical resolution. A comparison between different runs shows that the results of simulations, based on star formation methods in which gas conversion into stars is controlled by an efficiency parameter c_star, are sensitive to the numerical resolution of the simulation. In this respect star formation methods based instead on a local density threshold, as in Navarro and White (1993), are shown to give more stable results. Final X-ray luminosities are found to be numerically stable, with uncertainties of a factor two.