Cluster infall in the concordance LCDM model

Abstract

We perform statistical analyses of the infall of dark-matter onto clusters in numerical simulations within the concordance LCDM model. By studying the infall profile around clusters of different mass, we find a linear relation between the maximum infall velocity and mass which reach 900km/s for the most massive groups. The maximum infall velocity and the group mass follow a suitable power law fit of the form, V_{inf}^{max} = (M/m_0)^{gamma}. By comparing the measured infall velocity to the linear infall model with an exponential cutoff introduced by Croft et al., we find that the best agreement is obtained for a critical overdensity delta_c = 45. We study the dependence of the direction of infall with respect to the cluster centres, and find that in the case of massive groups, the maximum alignment occurs at scales r ~ 6Mpc/h. We obtain a logarithmic power-law relation between the average infall angle and the group mass. We also study the dependence of the results on the local dark-matter density, finding a remarkable difference in the dynamical behaviour of low- and high-density particles.