Detecting preheating in proto-clusters with Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest Tomography

TL;DR

This study investigates how preheating of proto-clusters affects Lyman-alpha forest tomography, revealing that increased energy injection at high redshift alters the transmission-density distribution, which can inform feedback models.

Contribution

It introduces a method to detect proto-cluster preheating effects using Lyα forest tomography and demonstrates its sensitivity to different preheating schemes in simulations.

Findings

Higher preheating energy shifts the transmission-density distribution towards higher Lyα transmission.

The effect of preheating varies with redshift, influencing the slope of the distribution.

The methodology can be applied to observational data to constrain feedback processes in proto-clusters.

Abstract

Studies of low redshift galaxy clusters suggest the intra-cluster medium (ICM) has experienced non-gravitational heating during the formation phase of the clusters. Using simple phenomenological heating prescriptions, we simulate the effect of this preheating of the nascent ICM in galaxy proto-clusters and examine its effect on Lyman-$\alpha$ (Ly$\alpha$) forest tomographic maps. We analyse a series of cosmological zoom-in simulations of proto-clusters within the framework of the Ly$\alpha$ transmission-dark matter (DM) density distribution. We find that the more energy is injected into the proto-ICM at $z$ = 3, the more the distribution at high DM density tilts towards higher Ly$\alpha$ transmission. This effect has been confirmed in both low-resolution simulations adopting a preheating scheme based on entropy floors, as well as in higher-resolution simulations with another scheme based on energy floors. The evolution of the slope of this distribution is shown to vary with redshift. The methodology developed here can be applied to current and upcoming Ly$\alpha$ forest tomographic survey data to help constrain feedback models in galaxy proto-clusters.