Extracting Galaxy Cluster Gas Inhomogeneity from X-ray Surface Brightness: A Statistical Approach and Application to Abell 3667

TL;DR

This paper develops a statistical method to analyze X-ray surface brightness fluctuations in galaxy clusters, confirming the lognormal distribution of ICM inhomogeneities through observations of Abell 3667 and simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to infer three-dimensional gas inhomogeneity properties from two-dimensional X-ray data, validated with real and simulated clusters.

Findings

X-ray brightness fluctuations follow a lognormal distribution.

The method accurately estimates fluctuation amplitude within a factor of two.

First observational confirmation of lognormal ICM inhomogeneity in a real cluster.

Abstract

Our previous analysis indicates that small-scale fluctuations in the intracluster medium (ICM) from cosmological hydrodynamic simulations follow the lognormal distribution. In order to test the lognormal nature of the ICM directly against X-ray observations of galaxy clusters, we develop a method of extracting statistical information about the three-dimensional properties of the fluctuations from the two-dimensional X-ray surface brightness. We first create a set of synthetic clusters with lognormal fluctuations. Performing mock observations of these synthetic clusters, we find that the resulting X-ray surface brightness fluctuations also follow the lognormal distribution fairly well. Systematic analysis of the synthetic clusters provides an empirical relation between the density fluctuations and the X-ray surface brightness. We analyze \chandra observations of the galaxy cluster Abell 3667, and find that its X-ray surface brightness fluctuations follow the lognormal distribution. While the lognormal model was originally motivated by cosmological hydrodynamic simulations, this is the first observational confirmation of the lognormal signature in a real cluster. Finally we check the synthetic cluster results against clusters from cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. As a result of the complex structure exhibited by simulated clusters, the empirical relation shows large scatter. Nevertheless we are able to reproduce the true value of the fluctuation amplitude of simulated clusters within a factor of two from their X-ray surface brightness alone. Our current methodology combined with existing observational data is useful in describing and inferring the statistical properties of the three dimensional inhomogeneity in galaxy clusters.