TNG-Cluster simulations find that in galaxy cluster centers turbulence accounts for under half the total velocity dispersion (typically 50-75 km/s), is mostly subsonic, provides sub-percent pressure support, and is primarily driven by SMBH feedback.
Non-thermal pressure support in X-COP galaxy clusters
2 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
abstract
Galaxy clusters are the endpoints of structure formation and are continuously growing through the merging and accretion of smaller structures. Numerical simulations predict that a fraction of their energy content is not yet thermalized, mainly in the form of kinetic motions (turbulence, bulk motions). Measuring the level of non-thermal pressure support is necessary to understand the processes leading to the virialization of the gas within the potential well of the main halo and to calibrate the biases in hydrostatic mass estimates. We present high-quality measurements of hydrostatic masses and intracluster gas fraction out to the virial radius for a sample of 12 nearby clusters with available XMM-Newton and Planck data. We compare our hydrostatic gas fractions with the expected universal gas fraction to constrain the level of non-thermal pressure support. We find that hydrostatic masses require little correction and infer a median non-thermal pressure fraction of $\sim6\%$ and $\sim10\%$ at $R_{500}$ and $R_{200}$, respectively. Our values are lower than the expectations of hydrodynamical simulations, possibly implying a faster thermalization of the gas. If instead we use the mass calibration adopted by the Planck team, we find that the gas fraction of massive local systems implies a mass bias $1-b=0.85\pm0.05$ for SZ-derived masses, with some evidence for a mass-dependent bias. Conversely, the high bias required to match Planck CMB and cluster count cosmology is excluded by the data at high significance, unless the most massive halos are missing a substantial fraction of their baryons.
years
2026 2representative citing papers
Power-law modeling of gas mass fraction and temperature variation reconciles observed X-ray scaling relations in galaxy clusters, reducing >3σ tensions from 49% to 11% and yielding a redshift-independent mass proxy Y_LGT0.
citing papers explorer
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Bulk vs. turbulent motions at the centres of galaxy clusters: AGN-driven turbulence according to TNG-Cluster
TNG-Cluster simulations find that in galaxy cluster centers turbulence accounts for under half the total velocity dispersion (typically 50-75 km/s), is mostly subsonic, provides sub-percent pressure support, and is primarily driven by SMBH feedback.
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Beyond Self-Similarity: Reconciling X-Ray Scaling Relations in Galaxy Clusters and Groups
Power-law modeling of gas mass fraction and temperature variation reconciles observed X-ray scaling relations in galaxy clusters, reducing >3σ tensions from 49% to 11% and yielding a redshift-independent mass proxy Y_LGT0.