The Three Hundred Project: the evolution of physical baryon profiles

TL;DR

This study compares baryonic profiles in galaxy clusters from two simulations and observations, revealing agreements at large radii and differences in core regions, shedding light on galaxy cluster formation and feedback models.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of baryonic property profiles in galaxy clusters from two state-of-the-art simulations against observations across redshifts.

Findings

Good agreement with observations at outer radii ($r \,\gtrsim\, 0.3r_{500}$)

Gadget-X matches observed gas profiles better in cluster centers

Evolution trends are consistent between simulations, especially at outer regions

Abstract

The distribution of baryons provides a significant way to understand the formation of galaxy clusters by revealing the details of its internal structure and changes over time. In this paper, we present theoretical studies on the scaled profiles of physical properties associated with the baryonic components, including gas density, temperature, metallicity, pressure and entropy as well as stellar mass, metallicity and satellite galaxy number density in galaxy clusters from $z=4$ to $z=0$ by tracking their progenitors. These mass-complete simulated galaxy clusters are coming from THE THREE HUNDRED with two runs: GIZMO-SIMBA and Gadget-X. Through comparisons between the two simulations, and with observed profiles which are generally available at low redshift, we find that (1) the agreements between the two runs and observations are mostly at outer radii $r \gtrsim 0.3r_{500}$, in line with the self-similarity assumption. While Gadget-X shows better agreements with the observed gas profiles in the central regions compared to GIZMO-SIMBA; (2) the evolution trends are generally consistent between the two simulations with slightly better consistency at outer radii. In detail, the gas density profile shows less discrepancy than the temperature and entropy profiles at high redshift. The differences in the cluster centre and gas properties imply different behaviours of the AGN models between Gadget-X and GIZMO-SIMBA, with the latter, maybe too strong for this cluster simulation. The high-redshift difference may be caused by the star formation and feedback models or hydrodynamics treatment, which requires observation constraints and understanding.