Hot Gas in Galaxy Clusters: Theory and Simulations

Abstract

We review the theory of the formation of galaxy clusters and discuss their role as cosmological probes. We begin with the standard cosmological framework where we discuss the origin of the CDM matter power spectrum and the growth of density fluctuations in the linear regime. We then summarize the spherical top-hat model for the nonlinear growth of fluctuations from which scaling relations and halo statistics are derived. Numerical methods for simulating gas in galaxy clusters are then overviewed with an emphasis on multiscale hydrodynamic simulations of cluster ensembles. Results of hydrodynamic AMR simulations are described which compare cluster internal and statistical properties as a function of their assumed baryonic processes. Finally, we compare various methods of measuring cluster masses using X-ray and the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE). We find that SZE offers great promise for precision measurements in raw samples of high-z clusters.