2012/04/08 by Paul Bode, Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Bode, Paul +5
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1204.1762
26 pages, 8 figures, ApJ submitted
arxiv created 2012/04/08 · openalex publication_date 2012/04/08 · arxiv updated 2012/04/10 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a new method for incorporating nonthermal pressure from bulk motions of gas into an analytic model of the intracluster medium in clusters of galaxies, which is based on a polytropic equation of state and hydrostatic equilibrium inside gravitational potential wells drawn from cosmological dark matter simulations. The pressure is allowed to have thermal and nonthermal components with different radial distributions; the overall level of nonthermal support is based on the dynamical state of the halo, such that it is lower in more relaxed clusters. This level is normalized by comparison to pressure profiles derived from X-ray observations, and to a high resolution hydrodynamical simulation. The nonthermal pressure fraction measured at r500 is typically in the range 10-20%, increasing with cluster mass and with redshift. The resulting model cluster properties are in accord with Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect observations of clusters. Inclusion of nonthermal pressure reduces the expected angular power spectrum of SZ fluctuations in the microwave sky by 24%.