Investigating the Properties of Merging Galaxy Clusters with Radio Halos/Relics Using X-ray Derived Pressure Maps

Alden, Brian C.

Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

Investigating the Properties of Merging Galaxy Clusters with Radio Halos/Relics Using X-ray Derived Pressure Maps Public Deposited

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/sj139345x

Abstract

Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound objects in the Universe. Containinghundreds to thousands of galaxies, clusters have a mass on order of 10¹⁵ M_⊙ . The majority of this mass is not found in the galaxies, but in the gas between the galaxies. This gas, the intracluster medium (ICM), is an X-ray bright, hot, and diffuse plasma with temperatures ranging from 10⁷ −10⁸ K. Merging clusters can also exhibit radio emission in the form of radio-relics and halos.

This dissertation presents an investigation into properties of merging galaxy clusters with radio halos and relics by employing X-ray derived temperature and pressure maps. To do so, we introduce our software pipeline, ‘ClusterPyXT’, which processes Chandra X-ray observations and calculates 10⁴ − 10⁵ spectral fits per cluster in order to generate high-fidelity temperature and pressure maps.

Next, we use the pipeline to analyze two different clusters. The first cluster analyzed is the curious case of A115. Our analysis of this dual-peaked cluster indicates the presence of a shock coinciding with it’s megaparsec sized radio relic. The other cluster we singularly focused on was the subject of NASA’s inaugural James Webb Space Telescope release, SMACSJ0723.3-7327. Glancing at this cluster’s X-ray surface brightness map and the cluster appears to be relaxed. The temperature map produced by our pipeline gives evidence that JWST imaged a cluster undergoing an active merger.

Chapter 5 presents the culminating work of this thesis, searching for a way to quantify turbulence in galaxy clusters using X-ray derived pressure maps. We analyze a sample of 44 merging galaxy clusters and 50 simulated clusters. Analyzing the pressure power spectrum of these clusters has allowed us to get closer to quantifying the turbulent state of the ICM.

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