The hot circumgalactic media of massive cluster satellites in the TNG-Cluster simulation: Existence and detectability

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
e-mail: rohr@mpia.de
² Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, ITA, Albert Ueberle Str. 2, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
³ Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel

Received: 13 November 2023
Accepted: 27 February 2024

Abstract

The most massive galaxy clusters in the Universe host tens to hundreds of massive satellite galaxies M_⋆ ∼ 10^{10 − 12.5} M_⊙, but it is unclear if these satellites are able to retain their own gaseous atmospheres. We analyze the evolution of ≈90 000 satellites of stellar mass ∼10^{9 − 12.5} M_⊙ around 352 galaxy clusters of mass M_200c ∼ 10^{14.3 − 15.4} M_⊙ at z = 0 from the new TNG-Cluster suite of cosmological magneto-hydrodynamical galaxy cluster simulations. The number of massive satellites per host increases with host mass, and the mass–richness relation broadly agrees with observations. A halo of mass M_200c^host ∼ 10^14.5(10¹⁵) M_⊙ hosts ∼100 (300) satellites today. Only a minority of satellites retain some gas, hot or cold, and this fraction increases with stellar mass. lower-mass satellites ∼10^9 − 10 M_⊙ are more likely to retain part of their cold interstellar medium, consistent with ram pressure preferentially removing hot extended gas first. At higher stellar masses ∼10^{10.5 − 12.5} M_⊙, the fraction of gas-rich satellites increases to unity, and nearly all satellites retain a sizeable portion of their hot, spatially extended circumgalactic medium (CGM), despite the ejective activity of their supermassive black holes. According to TNG-Cluster, the CGM of these gaseous satellites can be seen in soft X-ray emission (0.5−2.0 keV) that is, ≳10 times brighter than the local background. This X-ray surface brightness excess around satellites extends to ≈30 − 100 kpc, and is strongest for galaxies with higher stellar masses and larger host-centric distances. Approximately 10% of the soft X-ray emission in cluster outskirts ≈0.75 − 1.5 R_200c originates from satellites. The CGM of member galaxies reflects the dynamics of cluster-satellite interactions and contributes to the observationally inferred properties of the intracluster medium.