Intracluster stars in simulations with active galactic nucleus feedback

By E. Puchwein, Volker Springel, D. Sijacki, Klaus Dolag. 2010

134 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We use a set of high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of clusters of galaxies to study the build-up of the intracluster light (ICL), an interesting and likely significant component of their total stellar mass. Our sample of groups and clusters includes active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback and is of high enough resolution to accurately resolve galaxy populations down to the smallest galaxies that are expected to significantly contribute to the stellar mass budget. We describe and test four different methods to identify the ICL in cluster simulations, thereby allowing us to assess the reliability of the measurements. For all of the methods, we consistently find a very significant ICL stellar fraction (∼45 per cent) which exceeds the values typically inferred from observations. However, we show that this result is robust with respect to numerical resolution and integration accuracy, remarkably insensitive to changes in the star formation model, and almost independent of halo mass. It is also almost invariant when black hole growth is included, even though AGN feedback successfully prevents excessive overcooling in clusters and leads to a drastically improved agreement of the simulated cluster galaxy population with observations. In particular, the luminosities of central cluster galaxies and the ages of their stellar populations are much more realistic when including AGN. In the light of these findings, it appears challenging to construct a simulation model that simultaneously matches the cluster galaxy population and at the same time produces a low ICL component. We find that intracluster stars are preferentially stripped in a cluster's densest region from massive galaxies that fall into the forming cluster at z > 1. Surprisingly, some of the intracluster stars also form in the intracluster medium inside cold gas clouds that are stripped out of infalling galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2fa6562cf388de754a82a5108326ab65a932828a

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Citations in the corpus

The case for AGN feedback in galaxy groups (2009, result): “This agrees qualitatively with the findings of Sijacki et al. (2007), Puchwein et al. (2008, 2010), and Fabjan et al. (2009), who implemented BH growth and feedback in cosmological zoomed simulations.”
Modified Gravity-GADGET: A new code for cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of modified gravity models (2013, background): “…result in a self-regulated black hole growth (Di Matteo et al. 2005; Sijacki et al. 2007) and results in much more realistic properties of galaxy clusters (Puchwein et al. 2008) and their central galaxies (Puchwein et al. 2010), as well as abundances of massive galaxies (Puchwein & Springel 2013).”
Stellar Mass—Halo Mass Relation and Star Formation Efficiency in High-Mass Halos (2014, background): “Cluster formation simulations generically predict that total stellar fraction is only a weak function of cluster mass (e.g., Kravtsov et al. 2005; Puchwein et al. 2010; McCarthy et al. 2011; Planelles et al. 2013; Martizzi et al. 2013), i.e. total stellar mass scales almost linearly with cluster…”
Ultraviolet tails and trails in cluster galaxies: a sample of candidate gaseous stripping events in Coma (2010, background): “Such intra-cluster star formation has been tentatively identified in recent hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy clusters by Puchwein et al. (2010), where it contribu es some 30 per cent of the total intra-cluster light.”
First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: the stellar mass content of groups and clusters of galaxies (2017, methodology): “…properties of the ICM (e.g. Puchwein et al. 2008; Planelles et al. 2014), the stellar properties and profiles of the brightest central galaxies (Puchwein et al. 2010; Martizzi et al. 2012; Ragone-Figueroa et al. 2013), or the cool core - non cool core duality (e.g. Rasia et al. 2015; Hahn et…”
Towards a realistic population of simulated galaxy groups and clusters (2013, background): “Instead, the gas was stripped by orbiting satellites (e.g. Puchwein et al. 2010) and the reason why more massive clusters are more likely to have extended star formation is simply because there are more satellites to deposit cold gas in this fashion.”
Gas expulsion by quasar-driven winds as a solution to the overcooling problem in galaxy groups and clusters (2010, background): “…in many recent theoretical papers (e.g. Bower, McCarthy & Benson 2008, hereafter B08; Fabjan et al. 2010; McCarthy et al. 2010, hereafter Paper I; Puchwein et al. 2010), the properties of the hot gas and of the stellar component are intimately linked and any successful model must be able to…”
Cosmological simulations of the formation of the stellar haloes around disc galaxies (2011, methodology): “This type of star formation has been seen in SPH simulations previously (e.g., Puchwein et al. 2010).”
Shaping the galaxy stellar mass function with supernova- and AGN-driven winds (2012, methodology): “Furthermore, the luminosities of central group and cluster galaxies are reduced and made compatible with observations (Puchwein et al. 2010). c© 0000 RAS, MNRAS 000, 000–000”
Evidence for Significant Growth in the Stellar Mass of Brightest Cluster Galaxies over the Past 10 Billion Years (2012, background): “High-resolution simulations suggest that 50–80 per cent of the mass of mergers will be distributed throughout the cluster (Conroy, Wechsler & Kravtsov 2007; Puchwein et al. 2010).”
Moving mesh cosmology: the hydrodynamics of galaxy formation (2011, background): “For example, Puchwein et al. (2010) have simulated a high-resolution sample of galaxy clusters with GADGET finding that up to 30 per cent of intracluster stars form in dense cold blobs – remnants of infalling satellites.”