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Klaus Dolag

Publications and source records attributed to Klaus Dolag.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

The Young and the Wild: What happens to Protoclusters forming at z = 4?

Using one of the largest volumes of the hydrodynamical cosmological simulation suit Magneticum, we study the evolution of protoclusters identified at redshift = 4, with properties similar to SPT2349-56. We identify 42 protoclusters in the simulation, as massive and equally rich in substructures as observed, confirming that these structures are already virialized. The dynamics of the internally fast rotating member galaxies within these protoclusters resembles observations, merging rapidly to form the cores of the BCGs of the assembling clusters. Half of the gas reservoir of these structures is in a hot phase, with the metal-enrichment at a very early stage. These systems show a good agreement with the observed amount of cold star-forming gas, largely enriched to solar values. We predict that some of the member galaxies are already quenched at z = 4, rendering them undetectable through measurements of their gas reservoir. Tracing the evolution of protoclusters reveals that none of the typical mass indicators at high redshift are good tracers to predict the present-day mass of the system. We find that none of the simulated protoclusters with properties as SPT2349-56 at z = 4.3, are among the top ten most massive clusters at redshift z = 0, with some barely reaching masses of M = 2 x 10^14Msun. Although the average star-formation and mass-growth rates in the simulated galaxies match observations at high redshift reasonably well, the simulation fails to reproduce the extremely high total star-formation rates within observed protoclusters, indicating that the sub-grid models are lacking the ability to reproduce higher star-formation efficiency (or lower depletion timescales).

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\textsc{The Three Hundred} project: The \textsc{Gizmo-Simba} run

We introduce \textsc{Gizmo-Simba}, a new suite of galaxy cluster simulations within \textsc{The Three Hundred} project. \textsc{The Three Hundred} consists of zoom re-simulations of 324 clusters with $M_{200}\gtrsim 10^{14.8}M_\odot$ drawn from the MultiDark-Planck $N$-body simulation, run using several hydrodynamic and semi-analytic codes. The \textsc{Gizmo-Simba} suite adds a state-of-the-art galaxy formation model based on the highly successful {\sc Simba} simulation, mildly re-calibrated to match $z=0$ cluster stellar properties. Comparing to \textsc{The Three Hundred} zooms run with \textsc{Gadget-X}, we find intrinsic differences in the evolution of the stellar and gas mass fractions, BCG ages, and galaxy colour-magnitude diagrams, with \textsc{Gizmo-Simba} generally providing a good match to available data at $z \approx 0$. \textsc{Gizmo-Simba}'s unique black hole growth and feedback model yields agreement with the observed BH scaling relations at the intermediate-mass range and predicts a slightly different slope at high masses where few observations currently lie. \textsc{Gizmo-Simba} provides a new and novel platform to elucidate the co-evolution of galaxies, gas, and black holes within the densest cosmic environments.

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Persistent homology in cosmic shear II: A tomographic analysis of DES-Y1

We demonstrate how to use persistent homology for cosmological parameter inference in a tomographic cosmic shear survey. We obtain the first cosmological parameter constraints from persistent homology by applying our method to the first-year data of the Dark Energy Survey. To obtain these constraints, we analyse the topological structure of the matter distribution by extracting persistence diagrams from signal-to-noise maps of aperture masses. This presents a natural extension to the widely used peak count statistics. Extracting the persistence diagrams from the cosmo-SLICS, a suite of $N$-body simulations with variable cosmological parameters, we interpolate the signal using Gaussian Processes and marginalise over the most relevant systematic effects, including intrinsic alignments and baryonic effects. We find for the structure growth parameter $S_8=0.747^{+0.025}_{-0.031}$, which is in full agreement with other late-time probes. We also constrain the intrinsic alignment parameter to $A=1.54\pm 0.52$, ruling out the case of no intrinsic alignments at a $3σ$-level.

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Galaxies in the central regions of simulated galaxy clusters

In this paper, we assess the impact of numerical resolution and of the implementation of energy input from AGN feedback models on the inner structure of cluster sub-haloes in hydrodynamic simulations. We compare several zoom-in re-simulations of a sub-sample of the cluster-sized haloes studied in Meneghetti et al. (2020), obtained by varying mass resolution, softening length and AGN energy feedback scheme. We study the impact of these different setups on the subhalo abundances, their radial distribution, their density and mass profiles and the relation between the maximum circular velocity, which is a proxy for subhalo compactness. Regardless of the adopted numerical resolution and feedback model, subhaloes with masses Msub < 1e11Msun/h, the most relevant mass-range for galaxy-galaxy strong lensing, have maximum circular velocities ~30% smaller than those measured from strong lensing observations of Bergamini et al. (2019). We also find that simulations with less effective AGN energy feedback produce massive subhaloes (Msub> 1e11 Msun/h ) with higher maximum circular velocity and that their Vmax - Msub relation approaches the observed one. However the stellar-mass number count of these objects exceeds the one found in observations and we find that the compactness of these simulated subhaloes is the result of an extremely over-efficient star formation in their cores, also leading to larger-than-observed subhalo stellar mass. We conclude that simulations are unable to simultaneously reproduce the observed stellar masses and compactness (or maximum circular velocities) of cluster galaxies. Thus, the discrepancy between theory and observations that emerged from the analysis of Meneghetti et al. (2020) persists. It remains an open question as to whether such a discrepancy reflects limitations of the current implementation of galaxy formation models or the LCDM paradigm.

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The probability of galaxy-galaxy strong lensing events in hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters

Meneghetti et al. (2020) recently reported an excess of galaxy-galaxy strong lensing (GGSL) in galaxy clusters compared to expectations from the LCDM cosmological model. Theoretical estimates of the GGSL probability are based on the analysis of numerical hydrodynamical simulations in the LCDM cosmology. We quantify the impact of the numerical resolution and AGN feedback scheme adopted in cosmological simulations on the predicted GGSL probability and determine if varying these simulation properties can alleviate the gap with observations. We repeat the analysis of Meneghetti et al. (2020) on cluster-size halos simulated with different mass and force resolutions and implementing several independent AGN feedback schemes. We find that improving the mass resolution by a factor of ten and twenty-five, while using the same galaxy formation model that includes AGN feedback, does not affect the GGSL probability. We find similar results regarding the choice of gravitational softening. On the contrary, adopting an AGN feedback scheme that is less efficient at suppressing gas cooling and star formation leads to an increase in the GGSL probability by a factor between three and six. However, we notice that such simulations form overly massive subhalos whose contribution to the lensing cross-section would be significant while their Einstein radii are too large to be consistent with the observations. The primary contributors to the observed GGSL cross-sections are subhalos with smaller masses, that are compact enough to become critical for lensing. The population with these required characteristics appears to be absent in simulations.

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PSI: Constructing ad-hoc Simplices to Interpolate High-Dimensional Unstructured Data

Interpolating unstructured data using barycentric coordinates becomes infeasible at high dimensions due to the prohibitive memory requirements of building a Delaunay triangulation. We present a new algorithm to construct ad-hoc simplices that are empirically guaranteed to contain the target coordinates, based on a nearest neighbor heuristic and an iterative dimensionality reduction through projection. We use these simplices to interpolate the astrophysical cooling function $Λ$ and show that this new approach produces good results with just a fraction of the previously required memory.

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The eROSITA view of the Abell 3391/95 field: The Northern Clump. The largest infalling structure in the longest known gas filament observed with eROSITA, XMM-Newton, and Chandra

SRG/eROSITA PV observations revealed the A3391/95 cluster system and the Northern Clump (MCXC J0621.7-5242 galaxy cluster) are aligning along a cosmic filament in soft X-rays, similarly to what has been seen in simulations before. We aim to understand the dynamical state of the Northern Clump as it enters the atmosphere ($3\times R_{200}$) of A3391. We analyzed joint eROSITA, XMM-Newton, and Chandra observations to probe the morphological, thermal, and chemical properties of the Northern Clump from its center out to a radius of 988 kpc ($R_{200}$). We utilized the ASKAP/EMU radio data, DECam optical image, and Planck y-map to study the influence of the WAT radio source on the Northern Clump central ICM. From the Magneticum simulation, we identified an analog of the A3391/95 system along with an infalling group resembling the Northern Clump. The Northern Clump is a WCC cluster centered on a WAT radio galaxy. The gas temperature over $0.2-0.5R_{500}$ is $k_BT_{500}=1.99\pm0.04$ keV. We employed the $M-T$ scaling relation and obtained a mass estimate of $M_{500}=(7.68\pm0.43)\times10^{13}M_{\odot}$ and $R_{500}=(636\pm12)$ kpc. Its atmosphere has a boxy shape and deviates from spherical symmetry. We identify a southern surface brightness edge, likely caused by subsonic motion relative to the filament gas. At $\sim\! R_{500}$, the southern atmosphere appears to be 42% hotter than its northern atmosphere. We detect a downstream tail pointing toward the north with a projected length of $\sim318$ kpc, plausibly the result of ram pressure stripping. The analog group in the Magneticum simulation is experiencing changes in its gas properties and a shift between the position of the halo center and that of the bound gas while approaching the main cluster pair.

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Unequal-mass mergers of dark matter haloes with rare and frequent self-interactions

Dark matter (DM) self-interactions have been proposed to solve problems on small length scales within the standard cold DM cosmology. Here, we investigate the effects of DM self-interactions in merging systems of galaxies and galaxy clusters with equal and unequal mass ratios. We perform N-body DM-only simulations of idealized setups to study the effects of DM self-interactions that are elastic and velocity-independent. We go beyond the commonly adopted assumption of large-angle (rare) DM scatterings, paying attention to the impact of small-angle (frequent) scatterings on astrophysical observables and related quantities. Specifically, we focus on DM-galaxy offsets, galaxy--galaxy distances, halo shapes, morphology, and the phase--space distribution. Moreover, we compare two methods to identify peaks: one based on the gravitational potential and one based on isodensity contours. We find that the results are sensitive to the peak finding method, which poses a challenge for the analysis of merging systems in simulations and observations, especially for minor mergers. Large DM-galaxy offsets can occur in minor mergers, especially with frequent self-interactions. The subhalo tends to dissolve quickly for these cases. While clusters in late merger phases lead to potentially large differences between rare and frequent scatterings, we believe that these differences are non-trivial to extract from observations. We therefore study the galaxy/star populations which remain distinct even after the DM haloes have coalesced. We find that these collisionless tracers behave differently for rare and frequent scatterings, potentially giving a handle to learn about the micro-physics of DM.

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Galaxy Velocity Bias in Cosmological Simulations: Towards Percent-level Calibration

Galaxy cluster masses, rich with cosmological information, can be estimated from internal dark matter (DM) velocity dispersions, which in turn can be observationally inferred from satellite galaxy velocities. However, galaxies are biased tracers of the DM, and the bias can vary over host halo and galaxy properties as well as time. We precisely calibrate the velocity bias, b_v -- defined as the ratio of galaxy and DM velocity dispersions -- as a function of redshift, host halo mass, and galaxy stellar mass threshold (Mstarsat), for massive halos (M200c > 1e13.5 msun) from five cosmological simulations: IllustrisTNG, Magneticum, Bahamas + Macsis, The Three Hundred Project, and MultiDark Planck-2. We first compare scaling relations for galaxy and DM velocity dispersion across simulations; the former is estimated using a new ensemble velocity likelihood method that is unbiased for low galaxy counts per halo, while the latter uses a local linear regression. The simulations show consistent trends of b_v increasing with M200c and decreasing with redshift and Mstarsat. The ensemble-estimated theoretical uncertainty in b_v is 2-3% but becomes percent-level when considering only the three highest resolution simulations. We update the mass-richness normalization previously estimated by Farahi et al. (2016) for an SDSS redMaPPer cluster sample. The improved accuracy of our b_v estimates reduces the mass normalization uncertainty from 22% to 8%, demonstrating that dynamical estimation techniques can be competitive with weak lensing in calibrating population mean masses. We discuss necessary steps for further improving this precision. Our estimates for b_v(M200c, Mstarsat, z) are made publicly available.

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Effects of boosting on extragalactic components: methods and statistical studies

In this work we examine the impact of our motion with respect to the CMB rest frame on statistics of CMB maps by examining the one-, two-, three- and four- point statistics of simulated maps of the CMB and Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effects. We validate boosting codes by comparing their outcomes for temperature and polarization power spectra up to $\ell \simeq 6000$. We derive and validate a new analytical formula for the computation of the boosted power spectrum of a signal with a generic frequency dependence. As an example we show how this increases the boosting correction to the power spectrum of CMB intensity measurements by $\sim 30\%$ at 150 GHz. We examine the effect of boosting on thermal and kinetic SZ power spectra from semianalytical and hydrodynamical simulations; the boosting correction is generally small for both simulations, except when considering frequencies near the tSZ null. For the non-Gaussian statistics, in general we find that boosting has no impact with two exceptions. We find that, whilst the statistics of the CMB convergence field are unaffected, quadratic estimators that are used to measure this field can become biased at the $O(1)\%$ level by boosting effects. We present a simple modification to the standard estimators that removes this bias. Second, bispectrum estimators can receive a systematic bias from the Doppler induced quadrupole when there is anisotropy in the sky -- in practice this anisotropy comes from masking and inhomogenous noise. This effect is unobservable and already removed by existing analysis methods.

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High-Energy Neutrino Production in Clusters of Galaxies

In this work, we compute the contribution from clusters of galaxies to the diffuse neutrino background. Clusters of galaxies can potentially produce cosmic rays (CRs) up to very-high energies via large-scale shocks and turbulent acceleration. Due to their unique magnetic-field configuration, CRs with energy $\leq 10^{17}$ eV can be trapped within these structures over cosmological time scales, and generate secondary particles, including neutrinos and gamma rays, through interactions with the background gas and photons. We employ three-dimensional cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulations of structure formation to model the turbulent intergalactic medium. We use the distribution of clusters within this cosmological volume to extract the properties of this population. We propagate CRs in this environment using multi-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations across different redshifts (from $z \sim 5 \; \text{to} \; z =0$), considering all relevant photohadronic, photonuclear, and hadronuclear interactions. We also include the cosmological evolution of the CR sources. We find that, for CRs injected with a spectral index $1.5 - 2.7$ and cutoff energy $E_{max} = 10^{16} - 10^{17}$ eV, clusters contribute to a substantial fraction to the diffuse flux observed by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, and most of the contribution comes from clusters with $M > 10^{14} \; M_{\odot}$ and redshift $z < 0.3$.

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Galaxy Lookback Evolution Models -- a Comparison with Magneticum Cosmological Simulations and Observations

We construct empirical models of star-forming galaxy evolution assuming that individual galaxies evolve along well-known scaling relations between stellar mass, gas mass and star formation rate following a simple description of chemical evolution. We test these models by a comparison with observations and with detailed Magneticum high resolution hydrodynamic cosmological simulations. Galaxy star formation rates, stellar masses, gas masses, ages, interstellar medium and stellar metallicities are compared. It is found that these simple lookback models capture many of the crucial aspects of galaxy evolution reasonably well. Their key assumption of a redshift dependent power law relationship between galaxy interstellar medium gas mass and stellar mass is in agreement with the outcome of the complex Magneticum simulations. Star formation rates decline towards lower redshift not because galaxies are running out of gas, but because the fraction of the cold ISM gas, which is capable of producing stars, becomes significantly smaller. Gas accretion rates in both model approaches are of the same order of magnitude. Metallicity in the Magneticum simulations increases with the ratio of stellar mass to gas mass as predicted by the lookback models. The mass metallicity relationships agree and the star formation rate dependence of these relationships is also reproduced. We conclude that these simple models provide a powerful tool for constraining and interpreting more complex models based on cosmological simulations and for population synthesis studies analyzing integrated spectra of stellar populations.

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Calibration of bias and scatter involved in cluster mass measurements using optical weak gravitational lensing

Cosmological inference from cluster number counts is systematically limited by the accuracy of the mass calibration, i.e. the empirical determination of the mapping between cluster selection observables and halo mass. In this work we demonstrate a method to quantitatively determine the bias and uncertainties in weak-lensing mass calibration. To this end, we extract a library of projected matter density profiles from hydrodynamical simulations. Accounting for shear bias and noise, photometric redshift uncertainties, mis-centering, cluster member contamination, cluster morphological diversity, and line-of-sight projections, we produce a library of shear profiles. Fitting a one-parameter model to these profiles, we extract the so-called \emph{weak lensing mass} $M_\text{WL}$. Relating the weak-lensing mass to the halo mass from gravity-only simulations with the same initial conditions as the hydrodynamical simulations allows us to estimate the impact of hydrodynamical effects on cluster number counts experiments. Creating new shear libraries for $\sim$1000 different realizations of the systematics, provides a distribution of the parameters of the weak-lensing to halo mass relation, reflecting their systematic uncertainty. This result can be used as a prior for cosmological inference. We also discuss the impact of the inner fitting radius on the accuracy, and determine the outer fitting radius necessary to exclude the signal from neighboring structures. Our method is currently being applied to different Stage~III lensing surveys, and can easily be extended to Stage~IV lensing surveys.

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Exploring the role of cosmological shock waves in the Dianoga simulations of galaxy clusters

Cosmological shock waves are ubiquitous to cosmic structure formation and evolution. As a consequence, they play a major role in the energy distribution and thermalization of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We analyze the Mach number distribution in the Dianoga simulations of galaxy clusters performed with the SPH code GADGET-3. The simulations include the effects of radiative cooling, star formation, metal enrichment, supernova and active galactic nuclei feedback. A grid-based shock-finding algorithm is applied in post-processing to the outputs of the simulations. This procedure allows us to explore in detail the distribution of shocked cells and their strengths as a function of cluster mass, redshift and baryonic physics. We also pay special attention to the connection between shock waves and the cool-core/non-cool core (CC/NCC) state and the global dynamical status of the simulated clusters. In terms of general shock statistics, we obtain a broad agreement with previous works, with weak (low-Mach number) shocks filling most of the volume and processing most of the total thermal energy flux. As a function of cluster mass, we find that massive clusters seem more efficient in thermalising the IGM and tend to show larger external accretion shocks than less massive systems. We do not find any relevant difference between CC and NCC clusters. However, we find a mild dependence of the radial distribution of the shock Mach number on the cluster dynamical state, with disturbed systems showing stronger shocks than regular ones throughout the cluster volume.

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On the small scale turbulent dynamo in the intracluster medium: A comparison to dynamo theory

We present non-radiative, cosmological zoom-simulations of galaxy cluster formation with magnetic fields and (anisotropic) thermal conduction of one very massive galaxy cluster with a mass at redshift zero that corresponds to $M_\mathrm{vir} \sim 2 \times 10^{15} M_{\odot}$. We run the cluster on three resolution levels (1X, 10X, 25X), starting with an effective mass resolution of $2 \times 10^8M_{\odot}$, subsequently increasing the particle number to reach $4 \times 10^6M_{\odot}$. The maximum spatial resolution obtained in the simulations is limited by the gravitational softening reaching $ε=1.0$ kpc at the highest resolution level, allowing to resolve the hierarchical assembly of the structures in very fine detail. All simulations presented, have been carried out with the SPMHD-code Gadget-3 with a heavily updated SPMHD prescription. The primary focus is to investigate magnetic field amplification in the Intracluster Medium (ICM). We show that the main amplification mechanism is the small scale-turbulent-dynamo in the limit of reconnection diffusion. In our two highest resolution models we start to resolve the magnetic field amplification driven by this process and we explicitly quantify this with the magnetic power-spectra and the magnetic tension that limits the bending of the magnetic field lines consistent with dynamo theory. Furthermore, we investigate the $\nabla \cdot \mathbf{B}=0$ constraint within our simulations and show that we achieve comparable results to state-of-the-art AMR or moving-mesh techniques, used in codes such as Enzo and Arepo. Our results show for the first time in a fully cosmological simulation of a galaxy cluster that dynamo action can be resolved in the framework of a modern Lagrangian magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) method, a study that is currently missing in the literature.

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Rise and fall of post-starburst galaxies in Magneticum Pathfinder

Post-starburst galaxies (PSBs) belong to a short-lived transition population between star-forming (SF) and quiescent galaxies. Deciphering their heavily discussed evolutionary pathways is paramount to understanding galaxy evolution. We aim to determine the dominant mechanisms governing PSB evolution in both the field and in galaxy clusters. Using the cosmological hydrodynamical simulation suite Magneticum Pathfinder, we identify 647 PSBs with $z \sim 0$ stellar mass $M_* \geq 5 \cdot 10^{10} \, \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$. We track their galactic evolution, merger history, and black hole activity over a time-span of 3.6Gyr. Additionally, we study cluster PSBs identified at different redshifts and cluster masses. Independent of environment and redshift, we find that PSBs, like SF galaxies, have frequent mergers. At z=0, 89% of PSBs have experienced mergers and 65% had at least one major merger within the last 2.5Gyr, leading to strong star formation episodes. In fact, 23% of z=0 PSBs were rejuvenated during their starburst. Following the mergers, field PSBs are generally shutdown via a strong increase in AGN feedback (power output $P_{AGN,PSB} \geq 10^{56}\,$erg/Myr). We find agreement with observations for both stellar mass functions and z = 0.9 line-of-sight phase space distributions of PSBs in galaxy clusters. Finally, we find that $z \lesssim 0.5$ cluster PSBs are predominantly infalling, especially in high mass clusters and show no signs of enhanced AGN activity. Thus, we conclude that the majority of cluster PSBs are shutdown via an environmental quenching mechanism such as ram-pressure stripping, while field PSBs are mainly quenched by AGN feedback.

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The eROSITA view of the Abell 3391/95 field: a case study from the Magneticum cosmological simulation

We investigated the origin and gas properties of a simulated galaxy cluster pair, to connect simulation predictions to the SRG/eROSITA X-ray observations of the Abell 3391/95 field. The simulated system has been extracted from the (352 cMpc/h)^3 volume of the Magneticum Pathfinder cosmological simulations at z=0.07. We tracked back in time the main progenitors of the pair clusters and surrounding groups to study the assembly history of the system and its evolution. Similarly to the observed A3391/95 system, the simulated pair is embedded in a complex network of gas filaments, with structures aligned over more than 20 projected Mpc and the whole region collapsing towards the central overdense node. The spheres of influence (3*R200) of the two main clusters already overlap at z=0.07, but their virial boundaries are still physically separated. The diffuse gas located in the interconnecting bridge closely reflects the WHIM, with typical temperature of ~1 keV and overdensity $\sim 100$, with respect to the mean baryon density of the Universe, and lower enrichment level compared to the ICM in clusters. We find that most of the bridge gas collapsed from directions roughly orthogonal to the intra-cluster gas accretion directions, and its origin is mostly unrelated to the two cluster progenitors. We find clear signatures in the surrounding groups of infall motion towards the pair, such as significant radial velocities and slowdown of gas compared to dark matter. These findings further support the picture of the Northern Clump (MCXC J0621.7-5242) cluster infalling along a cosmic gas filament towards Abell 3391, possibly merging with it. We conclude that, in such a configuration, the pair clusters of the A3391/95-like system are in a pre-merger phase, and did not interact yet. The diffuse gas in the interconnecting bridge is mostly warm filament gas, rather than tidally-stripped cluster gas.

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N-body simulations of dark matter with frequent self-interactions

Self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) models have the potential to solve the small-scale problems that arise in the cold dark matter paradigm. Simulations are a powerful tool for studying SIDM in the context of astrophysics, but it is numerically challenging to study differential cross-sections that favour small-angle scattering, as in light-mediator models. Here, we present a novel approach to model frequent scattering based on an effective drag force, which we have implemented into the N-body code gadget-3. In a range of test problems, we demonstrate that our implementation accurately models frequent scattering. Our implementation can be used to study differences between SIDM models that predict rare and frequent scattering. We simulate core formation in isolated dark matter haloes, as well as major mergers of galaxy clusters and find that SIDM models with rare and frequent interactions make different predictions. In particular, frequent interactions are able to produce larger offsets between the distribution of galaxies and dark matter in equal-mass mergers.

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