The Young and the Wild: What happens to Protoclusters forming at z = 4?

TL;DR

This study uses the Magneticum simulation to analyze the evolution of protoclusters at z=4, revealing their properties, dynamics, and early quenching, and assessing their connection to present-day massive clusters.

Contribution

It provides a detailed simulation-based analysis of protoclusters at z=4, comparing their properties with observations and evaluating their future evolution and mass predictions.

Findings

Protoclusters at z=4 are already virialized and dynamically similar to observed structures.

Half of the gas in these protoclusters is hot and metal-enriched early on.

Simulated protoclusters do not reach the most massive cluster masses by z=0.

Abstract

Using one of the largest volumes of the hydrodynamical cosmological simulation suit Magneticum, we study the evolution of protoclusters identified at redshift = 4, with properties similar to SPT2349-56. We identify 42 protoclusters in the simulation, as massive and equally rich in substructures as observed, confirming that these structures are already virialized. The dynamics of the internally fast rotating member galaxies within these protoclusters resembles observations, merging rapidly to form the cores of the BCGs of the assembling clusters. Half of the gas reservoir of these structures is in a hot phase, with the metal-enrichment at a very early stage. These systems show a good agreement with the observed amount of cold star-forming gas, largely enriched to solar values. We predict that some of the member galaxies are already quenched at z = 4, rendering them undetectable through measurements of their gas reservoir. Tracing the evolution of protoclusters reveals that none of the typical mass indicators at high redshift are good tracers to predict the present-day mass of the system. We find that none of the simulated protoclusters with properties as SPT2349-56 at z = 4.3, are among the top ten most massive clusters at redshift z = 0, with some barely reaching masses of M = 2 x 10^14Msun. Although the average star-formation and mass-growth rates in the simulated galaxies match observations at high redshift reasonably well, the simulation fails to reproduce the extremely high total star-formation rates within observed protoclusters, indicating that the sub-grid models are lacking the ability to reproduce higher star-formation efficiency (or lower depletion timescales).