The Three Hundred project: cosmic web identification from 2D gas and Compton-$y$ maps of galaxy clusters outskirts

TL;DR

This study evaluates the accuracy of reconstructing the cosmic web around galaxy clusters using 2D gas and Compton-$y$ maps, assessing the effects of projection and SZ effect as tracers.

Contribution

It demonstrates that 2D maps effectively represent 3D filamentary structures and compares gas and SZ networks in simulated galaxy clusters.

Findings

2D filament networks closely match 3D structures with median distance ~0.22 h^{-1} Mpc.

Gas and SZ networks show good spatial agreement with median distance ~0.24 h^{-1} Mpc.

Filamentary structures contain ~80% of the integrated Compton-$Y$ parameter outside clusters.

Abstract

Galaxy clusters are located at the nodes of the filamentary network known as the cosmic web. A more comprehensive understanding of galaxy clusters can be achieved by considering their environment, in particular, the filamentary structures to which they are connected. In this work, we aim to assess the reliability of the cosmic web reconstruction from mock observational data. In particular, we aim to quantify the effects of the 2D projection relative to the underlying 3D network and the impact of using the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect as a tracer of the cosmic web. We reconstruct the filamentary networks in the outskirts of The Three Hundred simulated clusters with the filament finder DisPerSE. First, we extract the networks from the 2D gas distribution and evaluate their purity and completeness with respect to the 3D networks projected along the line of sight. We also compute the distances between the corresponding skeletons. Moreover, we identify filaments from simulated Compton-$y$ maps of the clusters at redshift $z=0$, and we compare them with the 2D gas network. The skeletons extracted from 2D maps provide good representations of the underlying 3D ones, both in terms of critical points and filaments. We find a median distance between the spines of the 2D and projected 3D networks of approximately $0.22 \, h^{-1}$ Mpc, although the connectivity derived from the 2D networks is slightly underestimated. We observe a good spatial agreement between the gas and SZ networks, with a median distance of $\approx 0.24 \, h^{-1}$ Mpc. Finally, we show that gas outside galaxy clusters is preferentially located in filamentary structures, which contribute $\sim 80\%$ of the integrated Compton-$Y$ parameter of clusters' outskirts.