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Title:
Accretion Shocks in Clusters of Galaxies and Their SZ Signature from Cosmological Simulations
Authors:
Molnar, Sandor M.; Hearn, Nathan; Haiman, Zoltán; Bryan, Greg; Evrard, August E.; Lake, George
Affiliation:
AA(Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, P.O. Box 23-141, Taipei 106, Taiwan ), AB(ASC/Alliances Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear Flashes, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA ; Present address: National Center for Atmospheric Research, PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80503, USA.; ), AC(Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, 550 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA ), AD(Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, 550 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA ), AE(Departments of Physics and Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1040, USA ), AF(Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Zurich, 190 Winterthurerstrasse, Zurich, CH-8057, Switzerland )
Publication:
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 696, Issue 2, pp. 1640-1656 (2009). (ApJ Homepage)
Publication Date:
05/2009
Origin:
IOP
ApJ Keywords:
cosmology: theory, galaxies: clusters: general
DOI:
10.1088/0004-637X/696/2/1640
Bibliographic Code:
2009ApJ...696.1640M

Abstract

Cold dark matter (CDM) hierarchical structure formation models predict the existence of large-scale accretion shocks between the virial and turnaround radii of clusters of galaxies. Kocsis et al. suggest that the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich signal associated with such shocks might be observable with the next generation radio interferometer, ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array). We study the three-dimensional distribution of accretion shocks around individual clusters of galaxies drawn from adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) and smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of ΛCDM (dark energy dominated CDM) models. In relaxed clusters, we find two distinct sets of shocks. One set ("virial shocks"), with Mach numbers of 2.5-4, is located at radii 0.9-1.3 R vir, where R vir is the spherical infall estimate of the virial radius, covering about 40%-50% of the total surface area around clusters at these radii. Another set of stronger shocks ("external shocks") is located farther out, at about 3 R vir, with large Mach numbers (≈100), covering about 40%-60% of the surface area. We simulate SZ surface brightness maps of relaxed massive galaxy clusters drawn from high-resolution AMR runs, and conclude that ALMA should be capable of detecting the virial shocks in massive clusters of galaxies. More simulations are needed to improve estimates of astrophysical noise and to determine optimal observational strategies.
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