Cosmic gas accretion from filaments onto galaxy clusters using the IllustrisTNG simulation

TL;DR

This study uses the IllustrisTNG simulation to analyze how cosmic filaments influence gas accretion onto galaxy clusters, revealing distinct regimes and thermodynamic properties of inflowing gas.

Contribution

It provides a detailed characterization of anisotropic gas accretion from filaments onto clusters, highlighting the roles of temperature, velocity, and cluster properties.

Findings

Warm gas penetrates clusters from filaments, hot gas is ejected beyond them.

Two accretion regimes are identified: warm gas near 2-4 R200 and hot gas near 1-2 R200.

Weak evidence of accretion shocks around filaments suggests slow thermalization.

Abstract

Galaxy clusters grow through the matter accretion from the cosmic web, mainly along filaments. We aim to characterize the gas accretion onto clusters, focusing on the role of filaments in driving anisotropic inflows and thermodynamic properties, as it remains a key challenge for cosmology. In this study, we analyzed 415 galaxy clusters from the IllustrisTNG-300 hydrodynamical simulation at $z=0$. Anisotropic signatures are highlighted by probing both isotropically and anisotropically (gas in filaments only), the radial profiles of gas properties (including temperature, entropy, density, and pressure), and the radial velocity distributions. Our results highlight two distinct regimes of gas accretion depending on the cluster-centric distances. In the cluster environment ($\sim$ 2-4$R_{200}$), fast infalling warm gas tunneled by cosmic filaments enters the warm-hot circumcluster medium, but filaments remain colder due to their slow thermalization with the surrounding, generating transverse temperature gradients. At the cluster outskirts ($\sim$ 1-2$R_{200}$), gas infalling along filaments enters the hot intracluster medium, with a strong tangential velocity gradient. Warm gas tends to penetrate clusters from filaments, while hot gas is preferentially ejected beyond them. The mass and dynamical state of clusters significantly impact these accretion features, with relaxed and massive clusters exhibiting stronger and more extended temperature discontinuities. Overall, this work emphasizes a coherent picture of anisotropic gas accretion from filaments onto clusters. While virial shocks tend to be observed near the cluster boundary, especially at the filament-cluster interface. We do not find strong evidence of accretion shocks around filaments, suggesting slow thermalization of filament gas as it enters the dense warm-hot circum-cluster environment.