Cosmological simulations of galaxy clusters with feedback from active galactic nuclei: profiles and scaling relations

TL;DR

This paper presents cosmological simulations of galaxy clusters incorporating AGN feedback, successfully reproducing several observed properties such as pressure profiles and baryon fractions, while highlighting limitations in core entropy profiles.

Contribution

Introduces a scalable AGN feedback model that improves agreement with observed cluster profiles and properties in cosmological simulations.

Findings

AGN model reproduces observed pressure profiles at z~0

Simulation matches observed baryon, gas, and star fractions

Model reduces star formation in brightest cluster galaxies

Abstract

We present results from a new set of 30 cosmological simulations of galaxy clusters, including the effects of radiative cooling, star formation, supernova feedback, black hole growth and AGN feedback. We first demonstrate that our AGN model is capable of reproducing the observed cluster pressure profile at redshift, z~0, once the AGN heating temperature of the targeted particles is made to scale with the final virial temperature of the halo. This allows the ejected gas to reach larger radii in higher-mass clusters than would be possible had a fixed heating temperature been used. Such a model also successfully reduces the star formation rate in brightest cluster galaxies and broadly reproduces a number of other observational properties at low redshift, including baryon, gas and star fractions; entropy profiles outside the core; and the X-ray luminosity-mass relation. Our results are consistent with the notion that the excess entropy is generated via selective removal of the densest material through radiative cooling; supernova and AGN feedback largely serve as regulation mechanisms, moving heated gas out of galaxies and away from cluster cores. However, our simulations fail to address a number of serious issues; for example, they are incapable of reproducing the shape and diversity of the observed entropy profiles within the core region. We also show that the stellar and black hole masses are sensitive to numerical resolution, particularly the gravitational softening length; a smaller value leads to more efficient black hole growth at early times and a smaller central galaxy.