Speaker
Ms
Monique A. Henson
(Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester)
Description
As the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe, galaxy clusters offer a crucial opportunity to study both the physics of structure formation and cosmology. There has been a wealth of work characterising the structure and properties of galaxy clusters in numerical simulations, however these have been focussed on dark matter only simulations or have been restricted to small samples of high mass (>10^15 solar masses) clusters. The studies in the latter category are typically limited in their scope due to their small sample size or since they lack essential baryonic physics, for example feedback from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Since galaxy clusters are a sensitive probe of the late time evolution of the Universe, further study of the properties of massive galaxy clusters in simulations with realistic baryonic physics is needed. The MACSIS project is a set of hydrodynamical simulations of massive galaxy clusters which extends the BAHAMAS sample of galaxy groups and clusters to higher masses. These simulations use the sub-grid physics models developed in the BAHAMAS project, which includes feedback from supernovae and active galactic nuclei. Taken with the BAHAMAS sample, the simulations form a population which covers almost two orders of magnitude in mass, with more than 250 clusters with masses greater than 10ˆ15 solar masses at z=0. In this poster I will show that the MACSIS project reproduces key cluster observables and also makes predictions for how cluster properties evolve over time. Since these simulations consist of both dark matter only and hydrodynamic simulations, I will also present how we have used these simulations to determine the impact of baryons on cluster structure and observables.
Primary author
Ms
Monique A. Henson
(Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester)
Co-authors
Mr
Aaron Peters
(Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester)
Dr
David J. Barnes
(Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester)
Dr
Ian G. McCarthy
(Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University)
Dr
Scott T. Kay
(Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester)
