English

On the prospect of discovering `galaxy groups' through radio observations

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2018-03-30 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Abstract

Observed steep mass scaling of radio power from the available high mass clusters has ruled out the prospect of detection of 'galaxy groups'. But, the available simulations and observations of thermal emissions show that the groups are merger prone, thus non-virialised, indicating better visibility in the radio waves. Detection of radio emissions from them would help us to understand the scale-dependent particle acceleration mechanisms also groups can be a unique laboratory to test the models of cosmic magnetism and canbe the potential source of WHIMs. So, we have modelled radio emissions from the simulated structures using {\sc{ENZO}}. We present a model for computing magnetic field and for the first time, used the electron energy spectrum from both the Fermi I (DSA) and Fermi II (TRA) mechanisms to compute radio emissions. Computed radio power from more than 200 simulated objects, mass ranging 1013\geq 10^{13} to 2×1015M2\times 10^{15} M_{\odot} show a new mass scaling of M500P1.4  GHz2.17±0.08M_{500} \propto P_{1.4\;GHz}^{2.17\pm 0.08} and a strong correlation scale of LXP1.4  GHz1.08±0.05L_X \propto P_{1.4\;GHz}^{1.08\pm 0.05}. Both magnetic field and radio power are shown to have adequately replicated the available observations at high mass, allowing us to extend the results to further smaller masses. We report that groups below 1014  M10^{14}\;\rm{M_{\odot}} show the existence of 10s of nano to a sub-μ\muG magnetic field and about 101923^{19-23} W Hz1^{-1} of radio power, much higher than what existing mass scaling predicts. We found that the combined radio power from TRA and DSA electrons can only fit very well to all the observed `radio halos'. Finally, we have implemented this model on a real data set obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). It predicts about 10s to 100s μ\muJy/(10\arcsec\arcsec beam) of radio flux in groups indicating their detectability with existing and aplenty with the future radio telescopes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1803.10764,
  title  = {On the prospect of discovering `galaxy groups' through radio observations},
  author = {Surajit Paul and Prateek Gupta and Reju Sam John and Venkat Pubjabi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.10764},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

15 pages, 10 figures Submitted to Astrophysical Journal (High resolution figures will be available with the published version)