arXiv subjects

D. Nagai

Publications and source records attributed to D. Nagai.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Radio relics in massive galaxy cluster mergers in the TNG-Cluster simulation

Radio relics are diffuse synchrotron sources in the outskirts of merging galaxy clusters energized by the merger shocks. In this paper, we present an overview of the radio relics in massive cluster mergers identified in the new TNG-Cluster simulation. This is a suite of magnetohydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations of 352 massive galaxy clusters with $M_{\rm 500c}= 10^{14.0-15.3}\rm~M_{\odot}$ sampled from a 1 Gpc-size cosmological box. The simulations are performed using the moving-mesh code AREPO with the galaxy formation model and high numerical resolution consistent with the TNG300 run of the IllustrisTNG series. We post-process the shock properties obtained from the on-the-fly shock finder to estimate the diffuse radio emission generated by cosmological shockwaves for a total of $\sim300$ radio relics at redshift $z=0-1$. TNG-Cluster returns a variety of radio relics with diverse morphologies, encompassing textbook examples of double radio relics, single relics, and ``inverted" radio relics that are convex to the cluster center. Moreover, the simulated radio relics reproduce both the abundance and statistical relations of observed relics. We find that extremely large radio relics ($>$ 2 Mpc) are predominantly produced in massive cluster mergers with $M_{\rm 500c}\gtrsim8\times10^{14}~\rm~M_{\odot}$. This underscores the significance of simulating massive mergers to study giant radio relics similar to those found in observations. We release a library of radio relics from the TNG-Cluster simulation, which will serve as a crucial reference for upcoming next-generation surveys.

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arXiv2023

What's in a name? Quantifying the interplay between the Definition, Orientation, and Shape of Ultra-diffuse Galaxies Using the Romulus Simulations

We explore populations of ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) in isolated, satellite, and cluster environments using the Romulus25 and RomulusC simulations, including how the populations vary with UDG definition and viewing orientation. Using a fiducial definition of UDGs, we find that isolated UDGs have notably larger semi-major (b/a) and smaller semi-minor (c/a) axis ratios than their non-UDG counterparts, i.e., they are more oblate, or diskier. This is in line with previous results that adopted the same UDG definition and showed that isolated UDGs form via early, high-spin mergers. However, the choice of UDG definition can drastically affect what subsets of a dwarf population are classified as UDGs, changing the number of UDGs by up to approximately 45% of the dwarf population. We also find that a galaxy's classification as a UDG is dependent on its viewing orientation, and this dependence decreases as environmental density increases. Overall, we conclude that some definitions for UDGs used in the literature manage to isolate a specific formation mechanism for isolated dwarfs, while less restrictive definitions erase a link to the formation mechanism. Thus, how we define UDG populations must be considered if we want to understand the formation and evolution of UDGs.

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arXiv2021

Voyage through the Hidden Physics of the Cosmic Web

The majority of the ordinary matter in the local Universe has been heated by strong structure formation shocks and resides in a largely unexplored hot, diffuse, X-ray emitting plasma that permeates the halos of galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters, and the cosmic web. We propose a next-generation "Cosmic Web Explorer" that will permit a complete and exhaustive understanding of these unseen baryons. This will be the first mission capable to reach the accretion shocks located several times farther than the virial radii of galaxy clusters, and reveal the out-of-equilibrium parts of the intra-cluster medium which are live witnesses to the physics of cosmic accretion. It will also enable a view of the thermodynamics, kinematics, and chemical composition of the circumgalactic medium in galaxies with masses similar to the Milky Way, at the same level of detail that $Athena$ will unravel for the virialized regions of massive galaxy clusters, delivering a transformative understanding of the evolution of those galaxies in which most of the stars and metals in the Universe were formed. Finally, the proposed X-ray satellite will connect the dots of the large-scale structure by mapping, at high spectral resolution, as much as 100% of the diffuse gas hotter than $10^6$ K that fills the filaments of the cosmic web at low redshifts, down to an over-density of 1, both in emission and in absorption against the ubiquitous cosmic X-ray background, surveying at least 1600 square degrees over 5 years in orbit. This requires a large effective area (~10 m$^2$ at 1 keV) over a large field of view ($\sim1$ deg$^2$), a megapixel cryogenic microcalorimeter array providing integral field spectroscopy with a resolving power $E/ΔE$ = 2000 at 0.6 keV and a spatial resolution of 5 arcsec in the soft X-ray band, and a low and stable instrumental background ensuring high sensitivity to faint, extended emission.

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arXiv2020

Stellar mass measurements in Abell 133 with Magellan / IMACS

We present the analysis of deep optical imaging of the galaxy cluster Abell 133 with the IMACS instrument on Magellan. Our multi-band photometry enables stellar mass measurements in the cluster member galaxies down to a mass limit of $M_\star=3\times10^8\,M_\odot$ ($\approx 0.1$ of the Large Magellanic Cloud stellar mass). We observe a clear difference in the spatial distribution of large and dwarf galaxies within the cluster. Modeling these galaxies populations separately, we can confidently track the distribution of stellar mass locked in the galaxies to the cluster's virial radius. The extended envelope of the cluster's brightest galaxy can be tracked to $\sim 200$ kpc. The central galaxy contributes $\sim 1/3$ of the the total cluster stellar mass within the radius $r_{500c}$.

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arXiv2019

A Deep Learning Approach to Galaxy Cluster X-ray Masses

We present a machine-learning approach for estimating galaxy cluster masses from Chandra mock images. We utilize a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), a deep machine learning tool commonly used in image recognition tasks. The CNN is trained and tested on our sample of 7,896 Chandra X-ray mock observations, which are based on 329 massive clusters from the IllustrisTNG simulation. Our CNN learns from a low resolution spatial distribution of photon counts and does not use spectral information. Despite our simplifying assumption to neglect spectral information, the resulting mass values estimated by the CNN exhibit small bias in comparison to the true masses of the simulated clusters (-0.02 dex) and reproduce the cluster masses with low intrinsic scatter, 8% in our best fold and 12% averaging over all. In contrast, a more standard core-excised luminosity method achieves 15-18% scatter. We interpret the results with an approach inspired by Google DeepDream and find that the CNN ignores the central regions of clusters, which are known to have high scatter with mass.

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arXiv2019

The galaxy cluster mass scale and its impact on cosmological constraints from the cluster population

The total mass of a galaxy cluster is one of its most fundamental properties. Together with the redshift, the mass links observation and theory, allowing us to use the cluster population to test models of structure formation and to constrain cosmological parameters. Building on the rich heritage from X-ray surveys, new results from Sunyaev-Zeldovich and optical surveys have stimulated a resurgence of interest in cluster cosmology. These studies have generally found fewer clusters than predicted by the baseline Planck LCDM model, prompting a renewed effort on the part of the community to obtain a definitive measure of the true cluster mass scale. Here we review recent progress on this front. Our theoretical understanding continues to advance, with numerical simulations being the cornerstone of this effort. On the observational side, new, sophisticated techniques are being deployed in individual mass measurements and to account for selection biases in cluster surveys. We summarise the state of the art in cluster mass estimation methods and the systematic uncertainties and biases inherent in each approach, which are now well identified and understood, and explore how current uncertainties propagate into the cosmological parameter analysis. We discuss the prospects for improvements to the measurement of the mass scale using upcoming multi-wavelength data, and the future use of the cluster population as a cosmological probe.

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arXiv2019

Constraining Gas Motions in the Intra-Cluster Medium

The detailed velocity structure of the diffuse X-ray emitting intra-cluster medium (ICM) remains one of the last missing key ingredients in understanding the microphysical properties of these hot baryons and constraining our models of the growth and evolution of structure on the largest scales in the Universe. Direct measurements of the gas velocities from the widths and shifts of X-ray emission lines were recently provided for the central region of the Perseus Cluster of galaxies by $Hitomi$, and upcoming high-resolution X-ray microcalorimeters onboard $XRISM$ and $Athena$ are expected to extend these studies to many more systems. In the mean time, several other direct and indirect methods have been proposed for estimating the velocity structure in the ICM, ranging from resonant scattering to X-ray surface brightness fluctuation analysis, the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, or using optical line emitting nebulae in the brightest cluster galaxies as tracers of the motions of the ambient plasma. Here, we review and compare the existing estimates of the velocities of the hot baryons, as well as the various overlapping physical processes that drive motions in the ICM, and discuss the implications of these measurements for constraining the viscosity and identifying the source of turbulence in clusters of galaxies.

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arXiv2017

The Galaxy Cluster Merger Catalog: An Online Repository of Mock Observations from Simulated Galaxy Cluster Mergers

We present the "Galaxy Cluster Merger Catalog." This catalog provides an extensive suite of mock observations and related data for N-body and hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy cluster mergers and clusters from cosmological simulations. These mock observations consist of projections of a number of important observable quantities in several different wavebands as well as along different lines of sight through each simulation domain. The web interface to the catalog consists of easily browseable images over epoch and projection direction, as well as download links for the raw data and a JS9 interface for interactive data exploration. The data is presented within a consistent format so that comparison between simulations is straightforward. All of the data products are provided in the standard FITS file format. Data is being stored on the yt Hub (http://hub.yt), which allows for remote access and analysis using a Jupyter notebook server. Future versions of the catalog will include simulations from a number of research groups and a variety of research topics related to the study of interactions of galaxy clusters with each other and with their member galaxies. The catalog is located at http://gcmc.hub.yt.

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arXiv2017

Testing for X-ray-SZ Differences and Redshift Evolution in the X-ray Morphology of Galaxy Clusters

We present a quantitative study of the X-ray morphology of galaxy clusters, as a function of their detection method and redshift. We analyze two separate samples of galaxy clusters: a sample of 36 clusters at 0.35 < z < 0.9 selected in the X-ray with the ROSAT PSPC 400 deg2 survey, and a sample of 90 clusters at 0.25 < z < 1.2 selected via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect with the South Pole Telescope. Clusters from both samples have similar-quality Chandra observations, which allow us to quantify their X-ray morphologies via two distinct methods: centroid shifts and photon asymmetry. The latter technique provides nearly unbiased morphology estimates for clusters spanning a broad range of redshift and data quality. We further compare the X-ray morphologies of X-ray- and SZ-selected clusters with those of simulated clusters. We do not find a statistically significant difference in the measured X-ray morphology of X-ray and SZ-selected clusters over the redshift range probed by these samples, suggesting that the two are probing similar populations of clusters. We find that the X-ray morphologies of simulated clusters are statistically indistinguishable from those of X-ray- or SZ-selected clusters, implying that the most important physics for dictating the large-scale gas morphology (outside of the core) is well-approximated in these simulations. Finally, we find no statistically significant redshift evolution in the X-ray morphology (both for observed and simulated clusters), over the range z ~ 0.3 to z ~ 1, seemingly in contradiction with the redshift-dependent halo merger rate predicted by simulations.

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arXiv2016

The Role of Penetrating Gas Streams in Setting the Dynamical State of Galaxy Clusters

We utilize cosmological simulations of 16 galaxy clusters at redshifts \zeq{0} and \zeq{0.6} to study the effect of inflowing streams on the properties of the X-ray emitting intracluster medium. We find that the mass accretion occurs predominantly along streams that originate from the cosmic web and consist of heated gas. Clusters that are unrelaxed in terms of their X-ray morphology are characterized by higher mass inflow rates and deeper penetration of the streams, typically into the inner third of the virial radius. The penetrating streams generate elevated random motions, bulk flows and cold fronts. The degree of penetration of the streams may change over time such that clusters can switch from being unrelaxed to relaxed over a time-scale of several giga years.

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arXiv2016

The XMM Cluster Outskirts Project (X-COP): Physical conditions to the virial radius of Abell 2142

Context. Galaxy clusters are continuously growing through the accretion of matter in their outskirts. This process induces inhomogeneities in the gas density distribution (clumping) which need to be taken into account to recover the physical properties of the intracluster medium (ICM) at large radii. Aims. We studied the thermodynamic properties in the outskirts (R > R500) of the massive galaxy cluster Abell 2142 by combining the Sunyaev Zel'dovich (SZ) effect with the X-ray signal. Methods. We combined the SZ pressure profile measured by Planck with the XMM-Newton gas density profile to recover radial profiles of temperature, entropy and hydrostatic mass out to 2R500. We used a method that is insensitive to clumping to recover the gas density, and we compared the results with traditional X-ray measurement techniques. Results. When taking clumping into account, our joint SZ/X-ray entropy profile is consistent with the predictions from pure gravitational collapse, whereas a significant entropy flattening is found when the effect of clumping is neglected. The hydrostatic mass profile recovered using joint X-ray/SZ data agrees with that obtained from spectroscopic X-ray measurements and with mass reconstructions obtained through weak lensing and galaxy kinematics. Conclusions. We found that clumping can explain the entropy flattening observed by Suzaku in the outskirts of several clusters. When using a method insensitive to clumping for the reconstruction of the gas density, the thermodynamic properties of Abell 2142 are compatible with the assumption that the thermal gas pressure sustains gravity and that the entropy is injected at accretion shocks, with no need to evoke more exotic physics. Our results highlight the need for X-ray observations with sufficient spatial resolution, and large collecting area, to understand the processes at work in cluster outer regions.

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arXiv2015

The gas distribution in the outer regions of galaxy clusters

We present the analysis of a local (z = 0.04 - 0.2) sample of 31 galaxy clusters with the aim of measuring the density of the X-ray emitting gas in cluster outskirts. We compare our results with numerical simulations to set constraints on the azimuthal symmetry and gas clumping in the outer regions of galaxy clusters. We exploit the large field-of-view and low instrumental background of ROSAT/PSPC to trace the density of the intracluster gas out to the virial radius. We perform a stacking of the density profiles to detect a signal beyond r200 and measure the typical density and scatter in cluster outskirts. We also compute the azimuthal scatter of the profiles with respect to the mean value to look for deviations from spherical symmetry. Finally, we compare our average density and scatter profiles with the results of numerical simulations. As opposed to some recent Suzaku results, and confirming previous evidence from ROSAT and Chandra, we observe a steepening of the density profiles beyond \sim r500. Comparing our density profiles with simulations, we find that non-radiative runs predict too steep density profiles, whereas runs including additional physics and/or treating gas clumping are in better agreement with the observed gas distribution. We report for the first time the high-confidence detection of a systematic difference between cool-core and non-cool core clusters beyond \sim 0.3r200, which we explain by a different distribution of the gas in the two classes. Beyond \sim r500, galaxy clusters deviate significantly from spherical symmetry, with only little differences between relaxed and disturbed systems. We find good agreement between the observed and predicted scatter profiles, but only when the 1% densest clumps are filtered out in the simulations. [Abridged]

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arXiv2014

The relation between gas density and velocity power spectra in galaxy clusters: high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations and the role of conduction

Exploring the ICM power spectrum can help us to probe the physics of galaxy clusters. Using high-resolution 3D plasma simulations, we study the statistics of the velocity field and its relation with the thermodynamic perturbations. The normalization of the ICM spectrum (density, entropy, or pressure) is linearly tied to the level of large-scale motions, which excite both gravity and sound waves due to stratification. For low 3D Mach number M~0.25, gravity waves mainly drive entropy perturbations, traced by preferentially tangential turbulence. For M>0.5, sound waves start to significantly contribute, passing the leading role to compressive pressure fluctuations, associated with isotropic (or slightly radial) turbulence. Density and temperature fluctuations are then characterized by the dominant process: isobaric (low M), adiabatic (high M), or isothermal (strong conduction). Most clusters reside in the intermediate regime, showing a mixture of gravity and sound waves, hence drifting towards isotropic velocities. Remarkably, regardless of the regime, the variance of density perturbations is comparable to the 1D Mach number. This linear relation allows to easily convert between gas motions and ICM perturbations, which can be exploited by Chandra, XMM data and by the forthcoming Astro-H. At intermediate and small scales (10-100 kpc), the turbulent velocities develop a Kolmogorov cascade. The thermodynamic perturbations act as effective tracers of the velocity field, broadly consistent with the Kolmogorov-Obukhov-Corrsin advection theory. Thermal conduction acts to damp the gas fluctuations, washing out the filamentary structures and steepening the spectrum, while leaving unaltered the velocity cascade. The ratio of the velocity and density spectrum thus inverts the downtrend shown by the non-diffusive models, allowing to probe the presence of significant conductivity in the ICM.

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arXiv2014

The relation between gas density and velocity power spectra in galaxy clusters: qualitative treatment and cosmological simulations

We address the problem of evaluating the power spectrum of the velocity field of the ICM using only information on the plasma density fluctuations, which can be measured today by Chandra and XMM-Newton observatories. We argue that for relaxed clusters there is a linear relation between the rms density and velocity fluctuations across a range of scales, from the largest ones, where motions are dominated by buoyancy, down to small, turbulent scales: $(δρ_k/ρ)^2 = η_1^2 (V_{1,k}/c_s)^2$, where $δρ_k/ρ$ is the spectral amplitude of the density perturbations at wave number $k$, $V_{1,k}^2=V_k^2/3$ is the mean square component of the velocity field, $c_s$ is the sound speed, and $η_1$ is a dimensionless constant of order unity. Using cosmological simulations of relaxed galaxy clusters, we calibrate this relation and find $η_1\approx 1 \pm 0.3$. We argue that this value is set at large scales by buoyancy physics, while at small scales the density and velocity power spectra are proportional because the former are a passive scalar advected by the latter. This opens an interesting possibility to use gas density power spectra as a proxy for the velocity power spectra in relaxed clusters, across a wide range of scales.

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arXiv2013

CMB Lensing Power Spectrum Biases from Galaxies and Clusters using High-angular Resolution Temperature Maps

The lensing power spectrum from cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature maps will be measured with unprecedented precision with upcoming experiments, including upgrades to ACT and SPT. Achieving significant improvements in cosmological parameter constraints, such as percent level errors on sigma_8 and an uncertainty on the total neutrino mass of approximately 50 meV, requires percent level measurements of the CMB lensing power. This necessitates tight control of systematic biases. We study several types of biases to the temperature-based lensing reconstruction signal from foreground sources such as radio and infrared galaxies and the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect from galaxy clusters. These foregrounds bias the CMB lensing signal due to their non-Gaussian nature. Using simulations as well as some analytical models we find that these sources can substantially impact the measured signal if left untreated. However, these biases can be brought to the percent level if one masks galaxies with fluxes at 150 GHz above 1 mJy and galaxy clusters with masses above M_vir = 10^14 M_sun. To achieve such percent level bias, we find that only modes up to a maximum multipole of l_max ~ 2500 should be included in the lensing reconstruction. We also discuss ways to minimize additional bias induced by such aggressive foreground masking by, for example, exploring a two-step masking and in-painting algorithm.

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arXiv2013

Bias from gas inhomogeneities in the pressure profiles as measured from X-ray and SZ observations

X-ray observations of galaxy clusters provide emission measure weighted spectra, arising from a range of density and temperature fluctuations in the intra-cluster medium (ICM). This is fitted to a single temperature plasma emission model to provide an estimate of the gas density and temperature, which are sensitive to the gas inhomogeneities. Therefore, X-ray observations yield a potentially biased estimate of the thermal gas pressure, P_X. At the same time Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) observations directly measure the integrated gas pressure, P_SZ. If the X-ray pressure profiles are strongly biased with respect to the SZ, then one has the possibility to probe the gas inhomogeneities, even at scales unresolved by the current generation of telescopes. At the same time, a weak bias has implications for the interchangeable use of mass proxies like Y_SZ and Y_X as cosmological probes. In this paper we investigate the dependence of the bias, defined as b_P(r)=P_X(r)/P_SZ(r)-1, on the characteristics of fluctuations in the ICM taking into account the correlation between temperature and density fluctuations. We made a simple prediction of the irreducible bias in idealised X-ray vs SZ observations using multi-temperature plasma emission model. We also provide a simple fitting form to estimate the bias given the distribution of fluctuations. Analysing a sample of 16 clusters extracted from hydrodynamical simulations, we find that the median value of bias is within +/-3% within R_500, it decreases to -5% at R_500 ~ 2R_500. The scatter of b_P(r) between individual relaxed clusters is small -- at the level of <0.03 within R_500, but turns significantly larger (0.25) and highly skewed at r>~ 1.5R_500. For any relaxed cluster we find |b_P(r)| < 15% within R_500, across different implementations of input physics in the simulations. [abridged]

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arXiv2012

Quantifying properties of ICM inhomogeneities

We present a new method to identify and characterize the structure of the intracluster medium (ICM) in simulated galaxy clusters. The method uses the median of gas properties, such as density and pressure, which we show to be very robust to the presence of gas inhomogeneities. In particular, we show that the radial profiles of median gas properties are smooth and do not exhibit fluctuations at locations of massive clumps in contrast to mean and mode properties. It is shown that distribution of gas properties in a given radial shell can be well described by a log-normal PDF and a tail. The former corresponds to a nearly hydrostatic bulk component, accounting for ~99% of the volume, while the tail corresponds to high density inhomogeneities. We show that this results in a simple and robust separation of the diffuse and clumpy components of the ICM. The FWHM of the density distribution grows with radius and varies from ~0.15 dex in cluster centre to ~0.5 dex at 2r_500 in relaxed clusters. The small scatter in the width between relaxed clusters suggests that the degree of inhomogeneity is a robust characteristic of the ICM. It broadly agrees with the amplitude of density perturbations in the Coma cluster. We discuss the origin of ICM density variations in spherical shells and show that less than 20% of the width can be attributed to the triaxiality of the cluster gravitational potential. As a link to X-ray observations of real clusters we evaluated the ICM clumping factor with and without high density inhomogeneities. We argue that these two cases represent upper and lower limits on the departure of the observed X-ray emissivity from the median value. We find that the typical value of the clumping factor in the bulk component of relaxed clusters varies from ~1.1-1.2 at r_500 up to ~1.3-1.4 at r_200, in broad agreement with recent observations.

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arXiv2009

Cosmological Studies With A Large-Area X-ray Telescope

A moderate investment of observing time with the International X-ray Observatory to study high-redshift galaxy clusters detected in future large-scale surveys, will provide cosmological measurements of fundamental importance. IXO observations, combined with lensing follow-up, will measure the perturbation growth factor from z=0-2 with an accuracy comparable to, or possibly better than, that expected from observations of cosmic shear with JDEM, and redshift-space distortions with EUCLID. The growth of structure data derived from clusters will significantly improve our knowledge of the dark energy equation of state and will aid in constraining non-GR models for cosmic acceleration. IXO observations of the largest, dynamically relaxed clusters will provide a powerful, independent measurement of the cosmological expansion history using the apparent f_gas(z) trend. Systematic and statistical errors from this technique are competitive with SNIa and BAO studies, making the test extremely useful for improving the accuracy and reliability of the geometric cosmological measurements planned for LSST and JDEM. Only by employing a range of powerful, independent approaches, including those discussed here, can robust answers to puzzles as profound as the origin of cosmic acceleration be expected.

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