Predicting the Non-Thermal Pressure in Galaxy Clusters

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytic model linking non-thermal pressure to entropy profiles in galaxy clusters, predicting the NTP fraction's radial behavior and its impact on hydrostatic mass estimates.

Contribution

It introduces a method to predict the non-thermal pressure fraction in galaxy clusters based on entropy profile constraints, improving mass estimation accuracy.

Findings

NTP fraction increases with radius, reaching about 20% at r500.

Predicted NTP profile aligns with non-radiative simulations beyond 0.7r500.

Hydrostatic bias due to NTP is approximately 12% within r500.

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between a galaxy cluster's hydrostatic equilibrium state, the entropy profile, $K$, of the intracluster gas, and the system's non-thermal pressure (NTP), within an analytic model of cluster structures. When NTP is neglected from the cluster's hydrostatic state, we find that the gas' logarithmic entropy slope, $k\equiv \mathrm{d}\ln K/\mathrm{d}\ln r$, converges at large halocentric radius, $r$, to a value that is systematically higher than the value $k\simeq1.1$ that is found in observations and simulations. By applying a constraint on these `pristine equilibrium' slopes, $k_\mathrm{eq}$, we are able to predict the required NTP that must be introduced into the hydrostatic state of the cluster. We solve for the fraction, $\mathcal{F}\equiv p_\mathrm{nt}/p$, of NTP, $p_\mathrm{nt}$, to total pressure, $p$, of the cluster, and we find $\mathcal{F}(r)$ to be an increasing function of halocentric radius, $r$, that can be parameterised by its value in the cluster's core, $\mathcal{F}_0$, with this prediction able to be fit to the functional form proposed in numerical simulations. The minimum NTP fraction, as the solution with zero NTP in the core, $\mathcal{F}_0=0$, we find to be in excellent agreement with the mean NTP predicted in non-radiative simulations, beyond halocentric radii of $r\gtrsim0.7r_{500}$, and in tension with observational constraints derived at similar radii. For this minimum NTP profile, we predict $\mathcal{F}\simeq0.20$ at $r_{500}$, and $\mathcal{F}\simeq0.34$ at $2r_{500}$; this amount of NTP leads to a hydrostatic bias of $b\simeq0.12$ in the cluster mass $M_{500}$ when measured within $r_{500}$. Our results suggest that the NTP of galaxy clusters contributes a significant amount to their hydrostatic state near the virial radius, and must be accounted for when estimating the cluster's halo mass using hydrostatic equilibrium approaches.