The full iron budget in simulated galaxy clusters: The chemistry between gas and stars

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Auteurs principaux: Biffi, Veronica, Rasia, Elena, Borgani, Stefano, Ghizzardi, Simona, Maio, Umberto, Dolag, Klaus, Gastaldello, Fabio, Tornatore, Luca
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Biffi, Veronica
Rasia, Elena
Borgani, Stefano
Ghizzardi, Simona
Maio, Umberto
Dolag, Klaus
Gastaldello, Fabio
Tornatore, Luca
author_facet Biffi, Veronica
Rasia, Elena
Borgani, Stefano
Ghizzardi, Simona
Maio, Umberto
Dolag, Klaus
Gastaldello, Fabio
Tornatore, Luca
contents Heavy chemical elements such as iron in the intra-cluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters are a signpost of the interaction between the gas and stellar components. Observations of the ICM metallicity in present-day massive systems, however, pose a challenge to the underlying assumption that the cluster galaxies have produced the amount of iron that enriches the ICM. We evaluate the iron share between ICM and stars within simulated galaxy clusters with the twofold aim of investigating the origin of possible differences with respect to observational findings and of shedding light on the observed excess of iron on the ICM with respect to expectations based on the observed stellar population. We evaluated the iron mass in gas and stars in a sample of 448 simulated systems with masses M500 > 1e14 Msun at z=0.07. These were extracted from the high-resolution (352 cMpc/h)^3 volume of the Magneticum cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We compared our results with observational data of low-redshift galaxy clusters. The iron share in simulated clusters features a shallow dependence on the total mass, and its value is close to unity on average. In the most massive simulated systems, the iron share is thus smaller than observational values by almost an order of magnitude. The dominant contribution to this difference is related to the stellar component, whereas the chemical properties of the ICM agree well overall with the observations. We find larger stellar mass fractions in simulated massive clusters, which in turn yield higher stellar iron masses, than in observational data. Consistently with the modelling, we confirm that the stellar content within simulated present-day massive systems causes the metal enrichment in the ICM. It will be crucial to alleviate the stellar mass discrepancy between simulations and observations to definitely assess the iron budget in galaxy clusters.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_07936
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The full iron budget in simulated galaxy clusters: The chemistry between gas and stars
Biffi, Veronica
Rasia, Elena
Borgani, Stefano
Ghizzardi, Simona
Maio, Umberto
Dolag, Klaus
Gastaldello, Fabio
Tornatore, Luca
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Heavy chemical elements such as iron in the intra-cluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters are a signpost of the interaction between the gas and stellar components. Observations of the ICM metallicity in present-day massive systems, however, pose a challenge to the underlying assumption that the cluster galaxies have produced the amount of iron that enriches the ICM. We evaluate the iron share between ICM and stars within simulated galaxy clusters with the twofold aim of investigating the origin of possible differences with respect to observational findings and of shedding light on the observed excess of iron on the ICM with respect to expectations based on the observed stellar population. We evaluated the iron mass in gas and stars in a sample of 448 simulated systems with masses M500 > 1e14 Msun at z=0.07. These were extracted from the high-resolution (352 cMpc/h)^3 volume of the Magneticum cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We compared our results with observational data of low-redshift galaxy clusters. The iron share in simulated clusters features a shallow dependence on the total mass, and its value is close to unity on average. In the most massive simulated systems, the iron share is thus smaller than observational values by almost an order of magnitude. The dominant contribution to this difference is related to the stellar component, whereas the chemical properties of the ICM agree well overall with the observations. We find larger stellar mass fractions in simulated massive clusters, which in turn yield higher stellar iron masses, than in observational data. Consistently with the modelling, we confirm that the stellar content within simulated present-day massive systems causes the metal enrichment in the ICM. It will be crucial to alleviate the stellar mass discrepancy between simulations and observations to definitely assess the iron budget in galaxy clusters.
title The full iron budget in simulated galaxy clusters: The chemistry between gas and stars
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.07936