arXiv subjects

F. Vazza

Publications and source records attributed to F. Vazza.

107 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

Properties of gas clumps and gas clumping factor in the intra cluster medium

The spatial distribution of gas matter inside galaxy clusters is not completely smooth, but may host gas clumps associated with substructures. These overdense gas substructures are generally a source of unresolved bias of X-ray observations towards high density gas, but their bright luminosity peaks may be resolved sources within the ICM, that deep X-ray exposures may be (already) capable to detect. In this paper we aim at investigating both features, using a set of high-resolution cosmological simulations with ENZO. First, we monitor how the bias by unresolved gas clumping may yield incorrect estimates of global cluster parameters and affects the measurements of baryon fractions by X-ray observations. We find that based on X-ray observations of narrow radial strips, it is difficult to recover the real baryon fraction to better than 10 - 20 percent uncertainty. Second, we investigated the possibility of observing bright X-ray clumps in the nearby Universe (z<=0.3). We produced simple mock X-ray observations for several instruments (XMM, Suzaku and ROSAT) and extracted the statistics of potentially detectable bright clumps. Some of the brightest clumps predicted by simulations may already have been already detected in X- ray images with a large field of view. However, their small projected size makes it difficult to prove their existence based on X-ray morphology only. Preheating, AGN feedback and cosmic rays are found to have little impact on the statistical properties of gas clumps.

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arXiv2012

Thermal and non-thermal traces of AGN feedback: results from cosmological AMR simulations

We investigate the observable effects of feedback from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) on non-thermal components of the intracluster medium (ICM). We have modelled feedback from AGN in cosmological simulations with the adaptive mesh refinement code ENZO, investigating three types of feedback that are sometimes called quasar, jet and radio mode. Using a small set of galaxy clusters simulated at high resolution, we model the injection and evolution of Cosmic Rays, as well as their effects on the thermal plasma. By comparing, both, the profiles of thermal gas to observed profiles from the ACCEPT sample, and the secondary gamma-ray emission to the available upper limits from FERMI, we discuss how the combined analysis of these two observables can constrain the energetics and mechanisms of feedback models in clusters. Those modes of AGN feedback that provide a good match to X-ray observations, yield a gamma-ray luminosity resulting from secondary cosmic rays that is about below the available upper limits from FERMI. Moreover, we investigate the injection of turbulent motions into the ICM from AGN, and the detectability of these motions via the analysis of line broadening of the Fe XXIII line. In the near future, deeper observations/upper-limits of non-thermal emissions from galaxy clusters will yield stringent constraints on the energetics and modes of AGN feedback, even at early cosmic epochs.

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arXiv2012

Discovery of radio halos and double-relics in distant MACS galaxy clusters: clues to the efficiency of particle acceleration

We have performed 323 MHz observations with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope of the most promising candidates selected from the MACS catalog. The aim of the work is to extend our knowledge of the radio halo and relic populations to z>0.3, the epoch in which massive clusters formed. In MACSJ1149.5+2223 and MACSJ1752.1+4440, we discovered two double-relic systems with a radio halo, and in MACSJ0553.4-3342 we found a radio halo. Archival Very Large Array observations and Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope observations have been used to study the polarization and spectral index properties. The radio halo in MACSJ1149.5+2223 has the steepest spectrum ever found so far in these objects (alpha > 2). The double relics in MACSJ1149.5+2223 are peculiar in their position that is misaligned with the main merger axis. The relics are polarized up to 30% and 40% in MACSJ1149.5+2223 and MACSJ1752.040+44, respectively. In both cases, the magnetic field is roughly aligned with the relics' main axes. The spectra in the relics in MACSJ1752.040+44 steepen towards the cluster centre, in agreement with model expectations. X-ray data on MACSJ0553.4-3342 suggests that this cluster is undergoing a major merger, with the merger axis close to the plane of the sky. The cores of the disrupted clusters have just passed each other, but no radio relic is detected in this system. If turbulence is responsible for the radio emission, we argue that it must develop before the core passage. A comparison of double relic plus halo system with cosmological simulations allows a simultaneous estimate of the acceleration efficiencies at shocks (to produce relics) and of turbulence (to produce the halo).

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arXiv2012

Turbulence in the ICM from mergers, cool-core sloshing and jets: results from a new multi-scale filtering approach

We have designed a simple multi-scale method that identifies turbulent motions in hydrodynamical grid simulations. The method does not assmume ant a-priori coherence scale to distinguish laminar and turbulent flows. Instead, the local mean velocity field around each cell is reconstructed with a multi-scale filtering technique, yielding the maximum scale of turbulent eddies by means of iterations. The method is robust, fast and easily applicable to any grid simulation. We present here the application of this technique to the study of spatial and spectral properties of turbulence in the intra cluster medium, measuring turbulent diffusion and anisotropy of the turbulent velocity field for a variety of driving mechanisms: a) accretion of matter in galaxy clusters (simulated with ENZO); b) sloshing motions around cool-cores (simulated with FLASH); c) jet outflows from active galactic nuclei, AGN (simulated with FLASH). The turbulent velocities driven by matter accretion in galaxy clusters are mostly tangential in the inner regions (inside the cluster virial radius) and isotropic in regions close to the virial radius. The same is found for turbulence excited by cool core sloshing, while the jet outflowing from AGN drives mostly radial turbulence motions near its sonic point and beyond. Turbulence leads to a diffusivity in the range =10^29-10^30 cm^2/s in the intra cluster medium. On average, the energetically dominant mechanism of turbulence driving in the intra cluster medium is represented by accretion of matter and major mergers during clusters evolution.

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arXiv2012

Modelling injection and feedback of Cosmic Rays in grid-based cosmological simulations: effects on cluster outskirts

We present a numerical scheme, implemented in the cosmological adaptive mesh refinement code ENZO, to model the injection of Cosmic Ray (CR) particles at shocks, their advection and their dynamical feedback on thermal baryonic gas. We give a description of the algorithms and show their tests against analytical and idealized one-dimensional problems. Our implementation is able to track the injection of CR energy, the spatial advection of CR energy and its feedback on the thermal gas in run-time. This method is applied to study CR acceleration and evolution in cosmological volumes, with both fixed and variable mesh resolution. We compare the properties of galaxy clusters with and without CRs, for a sample of high-resolution clusters with different dynamical states. At variance with similar simulations based on Smoothed Particles Hydrodynamics, we report that the inclusion of CR feedback in our method decreases the central gas density in clusters, thus reducing the X-ray and Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect from the clusters centre, while enhancing the gas density and its related observables near the virial radius.

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arXiv2011

The injection and feedback of Cosmic Rays in large-scale structures

We present the numerical implementation of run-time injection of Cosmic Rays energy, their spatial advection and their dynamical feedack on baryonic gas in the cosmological grid code ENZO. We discuss the results of its application to large-scale simulations showing that the CR energy inside clusters of galaxies is small compared to the gas energy (less than a few percent), while the ratio is larger near the accretion regions of clusters and filaments (about 0.1-0.3). CR feedback has a small, but significant impact on the X-ray emission and Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect from clusters.

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arXiv2011

Why are central radio relics so rare?

In this paper we address the question why cluster radio relics that are connected to shock acceleration, so-called radio gischt, have preferentially been found in the outskirts of galaxy clusters. By identifying merger shock waves in cosmological grid simulations, we explore several prescriptions for relating the energy dissipated in shocks to the energy emitted in the radio band. None of the investigated models produce detectable radio relics within 100-200 kpc from the cluster centre. All models cause > 50 per cent of the detectable relic emission at projected distances > 800 kpc. Central radio relics caused by shocks that propagate along the line-of-sight are rare events for simple geometrical reasons, and they have a low surface brightness making them elusive for current instruments. Our simulations show that the radial distribution of observed relics can be explained by the radial trend of dissipated kinetic energy in shocks, that increases with distance from the cluster centre up until half of the virial radius.

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arXiv2011

A Comparison of Cosmological Codes: Properties of Thermal Gas and Shock Waves in Large Scale Structures

[...] We present results for the statistics of thermal gas and the shock wave properties for a large volume simulated with three different cosmological numerical codes: the Eulerian total variations diminishing code TVD, the Eulerian piecewise parabolic method-based code ENZO, and the Lagrangian smoothed-particle hydrodynamics code GADGET. Starting from a shared set of initial conditions, we present convergence tests for a cosmological volume of side-length 100 Mpc/h, studying in detail the morphological and statistical properties of the thermal gas as a function of mass and spatial resolution in all codes. By applying shock finding methods to each code, we measure the statistics of shock waves and the related cosmic ray acceleration efficiencies, within the sample of simulations and for the results of the different approaches. We discuss the regimes of uncertainties and disagreement among codes, with a particular focus on the results at the scale of galaxy clusters. Even if the bulk of thermal and shock properties are reasonably in agreement among the three codes, yet some significant differences exist (especially between Eulerian methods and smoothed particle hydrodynamics). In particular, we report: a) differences of huge factors (10-100) in the values of average gas density, temperature, entropy, Mach number and shock thermal energy flux in the most rarefied regions of the simulations between grid and SPH methods; b) the hint of an entropy core inside clusters simulated in grid codes; c) significantly different phase diagrams of shocked cells in grid codes compared to SPH; d) sizable differences in the morphologies of accretion shocks between grid and SPH methods.

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arXiv2011

Massive and Refined. II. The statistical properties of turbulent motions in massive galaxy clusters with high spatial resolution

We study the properties of chaotic motions in the intra cluster medium using a set of 20 galaxy clusters simulated with large dynamical range, using the Adaptive Mesh Refinement code ENZO (e.g. Norman et al.2007). The adopted setup allows us to study the spectral and spatial properties of turbulent motions in galaxy clusters with unprecedented detail, achieving an maximum available Reynolds number of the order of R=500-1000 for the largest eddies. The correlations between the energy of these motions in the Intra Cluster Medium and the dynamical state of the host systems are studied, and the statistical properties of turbulent motions and their evolution with time support that major merger events are responsible for the injection of the bulk of turbulent kinetic energy inside cluster. Turbulence is found to account for a 20-30 per cent of the thermal energy in merging clusters, while it accounts for a 5 per cent in relaxed clusters. A comparison of the energies of turbulence and motions in our simulated clusters with present upper-limits in real nearby clusters, recently derived with XMM-Newton (Sanders et al.2010), is provided. When the same spatial scales of turbulent motions are compared, the data from simulations result well within the range presently allowed by observations. Finally, we comment on the possibility that turbulence may accelerate relativistic particles leading to the formation of giant radio halos in turbulent (merging) clusters. Based on our simulations we confirm previous semi-analytical studies that suggest that the fraction of turbulent clusters is consistent with that of clusters hosting radio halos.

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arXiv2010

The scatter in the radial profiles of X-ray luminous galaxy clusters as diagnostic of the thermodynamical state of the ICM

We study the azimuthal scatter in the radial profiles of X-ray luminous galaxy clusters, with two sets of high-resolution cosmological re-simulations obtained with the codes ENZO and GADGET2. The average gas profiles are computed for different angular sectors of the cluster projected volume, and compared with the mean cluster profiles at each radius from the center. We report that in general the level of azimuthal scatter is found to be about 10 per cent for gas density, temperature and entropy inside R200, and about 25 per cent for X-ray luminosity for the same volume. These values generally doubles going to 2 R200 from the cluster center, and are generally found to be higher (by about 20-40 percent) in the case of perturbed systems. A comparison with results from recent SUZAKU observations is discussed, showing the possibility to simply interpret the large azimuthal scatter of observables in light of our simulated results.

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arXiv2010

The entropy core in galaxy clusters: numerical and physical effects in cosmological grid simulations

We investigated the numerical and physical reasons leading to a flat distribution of low gas entropy in the core region of galaxy clusters, as commonly found in grid cosmological simulations. To this end, we run a set of 30 high resolution re-simulations of a 3 x 10^14 M_sol/h cluster of galaxies with the AMR code ENZO, exploring and investigating the details involved in the production of entropy in simulated galaxy clusters. The occurrence of the flat entropy core is found to be mainly due to hydro-dynamical processes resolved in the code and that additional spurious effects of numerical origin (e.g. artificial heating due to softening effects or N-body noise) can affect the size and level of the entropy core only in a minor way. We show that the entropy profile of non-radiative simulations is produced by a mechanism of "sorting in entropy" which takes place with regularity during the cluster evolution. Using gas tracers we prove that the flat entropy core is caused by physical mixing of gravity-driven subsonic motions within the shallow inner cluster potential. Re-simulations were also produced for the same cluster object with the addition of radiative cooling, uniform pre-heating at high redshift (z=10) and late (z<1) thermal energy feedback from AGN activity in the cluster, in order to assess the effects of such mechanisms on the final entropy profile of the cluster. We report on the infeasibility of balancing the catastrophic cooling and recovering a flat entropy profile with the investigated trials for AGN activity alone, while for a sub-set of pre-heating models, or AGN feedback plus pre-heating models, a flat entropy distribution similar to non-radiative runs can be obtained with a viable energy requirement, and in good consistency with X-ray observations.

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arXiv2010

The Mixing and Transport Properties of the Intra Cluster Medium: a numerical study using tracers particles

We present a study of the mixing properties of the simulated intra cluster Medium, using tracers particles that are advected by the gas flow during the evolution of cosmic structures. Using a sample of seven galaxy clusters (with masses in the range of M=2-3 10^14Msol/h) simulated with a peak resolution of 25kpc/h up to the distance of two virial radii from their centers, we investigate the application of tracers to some important problems concerning the mixing of the ICM. The transport properties of the evolving ICM are studied through the analysis of pair dispersion statistics and mixing distributions. As an application, we focus on the transport of metals in the ICM. We adopt simple scenarios for the injection of metal tracers in the ICM, and find remarkable differences of metallicity profiles in relaxed and merger systems, also through the analysis of simulated emission from Doppler-shifted Fe XXIII lines.

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arXiv2009

Turbulent Motions and Shocks Waves in Galaxy Clusters simulated with AMR

We have implemented an Adaptive Mesh Refinement criterion explicitly designed to increase spatial resolution around discontinuities in the velocity field in ENZO cosmological simulations. With this technique, shocks and turbulent eddies developed during the hierarchical assembly of galaxy clusters are followed with unprecedented spatial resolution, even at large distances from the clusters center. By measuring the spectral properties of the gas velocity field, its time evolution and the properties of shocks for a reference galaxy cluster, we investigate the connection between accretion processes and the onset of chaotic motions in the simulated Inter Galactic Medium over a wide range of scales

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arXiv2009

Shock Waves in Eulerian Cosmological Simulations: Main Properties and Acceleration of Cosmic Rays

We analyze the properties of Large Scale Shocks in a cosmological volume of size 103Mpc/h simulated with the public 1.0.1 release of the ENZO code. Different methods to identify and characterize shocks in post processing are discussed together with their uncertainties. Re-ionization affects the properties of shocks in simulations, and we propose a fitting procedure to model accurately the effect of re-ionization in non--radiative simulations, with a post--processing procedure. We investigate the properties of shocks by means of a procedure which uses jumps in the velocity variables across the cells in the simulations and this allows us to have a viable description of shocks also in relatively under-dense cosmic regions. We derive the distributions of the number of shocks and of the energy dissipated at these shocks as a function of their Mach number, and discuss the evolution of these distributions with cosmological time and across different cosmic environments (clusters, outskirts, filaments, voids). In line with some previous numerical studies (e.g. Ryu et al.2003, Pfrommer et al.2006) relatively weak shocks are found to dominate the process of energy dissipation in the simulated cosmic volume, although we find a larger ratio between weak and strong shocks with respect to previous studies. We estimate the rate of injection of CR at Large Scale Shocks by adopting injection efficiencies taken from previous numerical calculations. The flux dissipated in the form of CR within the whole simulated volume at the present epoch is about 20 per cent of the thermal energy dissipated at shocks; this fraction is smaller within galaxy clusters.

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arXiv2008

Cosmological Shocks in Eulerian Simulations: Main Properties and Cosmic Rays Acceleration

Aims: morpholgies, number and energy distributions of Cosmological Shock Waves from a set of ENZO cosmological simulations are produced, along with a study of the connection with Cosmic Rays processes in different environments. Method: we perform cosmological simulations with the public release of the PPM code ENZO, adopt a simple and physically motivated numerical setup to follow the evolution of cosmic structures at the resolution of 125kpc per cell, and characterise shocks with a new post processing scheme. Results: we estimate the efficency of the acceleration of Cosmic Ray particles and present the first comparison of our results with existing limits from observations of galaxy clusters.

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arXiv2006

Turbulent Velocity Fields in SPH--simulated Galaxy Clusters

We present a study of the turbulent velocity fields in the Intra Cluster Medium of a sample of 21 galaxy clusters simulated by the SPH--code Gadget2, using a new numerical scheme where the artificial viscosity is suppressed outside shocks. The turbulent motions in the ICM of our simulated clusters are detected with a novel method devised to better disentangle laminar bulk motions from chaotic ones. We focus on the scaling law between the turbulent energy content of the gas particles and the total mass, and find that the energy in the form of turbulence scales approximatively with the thermal energy of clusters. We follow the evolution with time of the scaling laws and discuss the physical origin of the observed trends. The simulated data are in agreement with independent semi--analytical calculations, and the combination between the two methods allows to constrain the scaling law over more than two decades in cluster mass.

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arXiv2005

Turbulent gas motions in galaxy cluster simulations: The role of SPH viscosity

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) employs an artificial viscosity to properly capture hydrodynamical shock waves. In its original formulation, the resulting numerical viscosity is large enough to suppress structure in the velocity field on scales well above the nominal resolution limit, and to damp the generation of turbulence by fluid instabilities. This could artificially suppress random gas motions in the intracluster medium (ICM), which are driven by infalling structures during the hierarchical structure formation process. We show that this is indeed the case by analysing results obtained with an SPH formulation where an individual, time-variable viscosity is used for each particle (Monaghan 1997). Using test calculations involving strong shocks, we demonstrate that this scheme captures shocks as well as the original formulation of SPH, but, in regions away from shocks, the numerical viscosity is much smaller. In a set of nine high-resolution simulations of cosmological galaxy cluster formation, we find that this low--viscosity formulation of SPH produces substantially higher levels of turbulent gas motions in the ICM, reaching a kinetic energy content in random gas motions (measured within a 1Mpc cube) of up to 5%-30% of the thermal energy content, depending on cluster mass. This has also significant effects on radial gas profile. We find a central flattening of the entropy profile and a reduction of the central gas density in the low--viscosity scheme. Interestingly, this tends to reduce the differences seen in SPH and adaptive mesh refinement simulations of cluster formation. Finally, invoking a model for particle acceleration by MHD waves driven by turbulence, we find efficient electron acceleration to power diffuse radio emission.

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