X-IFU/Athena view of the most distant galaxy clusters in the Universe

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the potential of the X-IFU instrument on Athena to explore the formation and evolution of distant galaxy clusters, focusing on their physical properties and feedback processes at high redshift.

Contribution

It presents a feasibility study using simulations to show how X-IFU can investigate the physics of massive halos at their formation epoch (z=2).

Findings

X-IFU can reconstruct global and spatial properties of distant galaxy groups.

Simulations show X-IFU's capability to study chemical enrichment and dynamics.

The study supports X-IFU's role in understanding feedback mechanisms in early galaxy clusters.

Abstract

The X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) on-board the second large ESA mission ''Athena'' will be a high spatial (5'') and spectral (2.5eV) resolution X-ray imaging spectrometer, operating in the 0.2-12 keV energy band. It will address the science question of the assembly and evolution through cosmic time of the largest halos of matter in the Universe, groups and clusters of galaxies. To this end, we present an on-going feasibility study to demonstrate the X-IFU capabilities to unveil the physics of massive halos at their epoch of formation. Starting from a distant (z=2) group of galaxies ($M_{500} = 7\cdot 10^{13} M_\odot/h$) extracted from the HYDRANGEA cosmological and hydrodynamical numerical simulations, we perform an end-to-end simulation of X-IFU observations. From the reconstruction of the global, 1D and 2D quantities, we plan to investigate the various X-IFU science cases for clusters of galaxies, such as the chemical enrichment of the intra-cluster medium (ICM), the dynamical assembly of groups and clusters and the impact of feedback from galaxy and super-massive black hole evolution.