CoMaLit-IV. Evolution and self-similarity of scaling relations with the galaxy cluster mass

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to analyze how galaxy cluster scaling relations evolve over time, accounting for biases and intrinsic scatter, and applies it to various observable-mass relations with results consistent with self-similar structure formation models.

Contribution

It presents a novel self-calibrating method to infer the evolution and scatter of galaxy cluster scaling relations from observational data.

Findings

Relations mostly agree with self-similar evolution predictions

L_X-M_Delta relation shows negative evolution consistent with cooling and preheating

Intrinsic scatter in sigma_v-M_Delta relation is approximately 14%

Abstract

The scaling of observable properties of galaxy clusters with mass evolves with time. Assessing the role of the evolution is crucial to study the formation and evolution of massive halos and to avoid biases in the calibration. We present a general method to infer the mass and the redshift dependence, and the time-evolving intrinsic scatter of the mass-observable relations. The procedure self-calibrates the redshift dependent completeness function of the sample. The intrinsic scatter in the mass estimates used to calibrate the relation is considered too. We apply the method to the scaling of mass M_Delta versus line of sight galaxy velocity dispersion sigma_v, optical richness, X-ray luminosity, L_X, and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich signal. Masses were calibrated with weak lensing measurements. The measured relations are in good agreement with time and mass dependencies predicted in the self-similar scenario of structure formation. The lone exception is the L_X-M_Delta relation whose time evolution is negative in agreement with formation scenarios with additional radiative cooling and uniform preheating at high redshift. The intrinsic scatter in the sigma_v-M_Delta relation is notably small, of order of 14 per cent. Robust predictions on the observed properties of the galaxy clusters in the CLASH sample are provided as cases of study. Catalogs and scripts are publicly available at http://pico.bo.astro.it/~sereno/CoMaLit/.