Active galactic nucleus driven jet feedback in cosmologically forming cool-core galaxy clusters I: The effect of hierarchical assembly on intra-cluster medium properties

Rainer Weinberger; Lorenzo Maria Perrone; Christoph Pfrommer; Thomas Berlok; Ewald Puchwein; Léna Jlassi; Rosie Talbot; Joseph Whittingham; Rüdiger Pakmor; Volker Springel

arXiv · 2606.23775

Active galactic nucleus driven jet feedback in cosmologically forming cool-core galaxy clusters I: The effect of hierarchical assembly on intra-cluster medium properties

Rainer Weinberger·Lorenzo Maria Perrone·Christoph Pfrommer·Thomas Berlok·Ewald Puchwein·Léna Jlassi·Rosie Talbot·Joseph Whittingham·Rüdiger Pakmor·Volker Springel

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Abstract

The atmospheres of cool-core galaxy clusters are excellent probes of astrophysical plasmas. However, how the interplay between assembly and active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback leads to the observed gas profiles remains uncertain. We study the impact of hierarchical assembly on the intra-cluster medium (ICM) in cool-core galaxy clusters using hydrodynamic simulations as part of the PICO-Cluster project. We compare cosmological zoom simulations employing an explicit AGN jet model against PICO-Cluster simulations with IllustrisTNG kinetic AGN feedback, as well as against isolated galaxy cluster simulations using jet feedback. The stellar and gas fractions of our cosmological galaxy cluster simulations with jet feedback are in excellent agreement with observed galaxy clusters, and the ICM thermodynamic profiles resemble those of local cool-core galaxy clusters while those run with IllustrisTNG kinetic AGN feedback do not match these observations. In all simulations, cosmological and isolated, the AGN heating roughly balances the cooling losses, with star formation being significantly suppressed. The most notable differences between the cosmological and isolated simulations are the resulting velocity and multi-phase structure: gas at radii $> 50$ kpc is shaped by satellite galaxies rather than jet feedback originating form the central galaxy. This leads to significant differences in non-thermal pressure support, with only the cosmological simulations being consistent with recent observations. A second notable difference is the abundance of warm ($<10^5$ K) gas beyond the core region, which is absent in our isolated simulation. Our results highlight the need for taking cosmological assembly into account in comparisons of the ICM dynamics and its multi-phase nature, while self-regulation is altered by hierarchical assembly via merger-driven growth of the central supermassive black hole.

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Rainer Weinberger, Lorenzo Maria Perrone, Christoph Pfrommer, Thomas Berlok, Ewald Puchwein, Léna Jlassi, Rosie Talbot, Joseph Whittingham, Rüdiger Pakmor, Volker Springel. 2026-06-22. Active galactic nucleus driven jet feedback in cosmologically forming cool-core galaxy clusters I: The effect of hierarchical assembly on intra-cluster medium properties. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.23775

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