Special Session SS28  5 July 2024

The new era of X-ray spectroscopy of the intracluster medium: metal enrichment, feedback, turbulence from Chandra/XMM-Newton to XRISM and Athena

News: This Special Session has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme under the AHEAD2020 project (grant agreement n. 871158).

Aims and scope

Understanding how the properties of the galaxy clusters, the largest hierarchically-formed and gravitationally-bound structures in the universe, shape and evolve is key to linking astrophysics and cosmology in a consistent picture. Peculiar of the thermal emission from the hot intracluster medium pervading galaxy clusters, the X-ray emission lines trace directly the metal distribution, and probe in a unique way and at the same time, through their modelization, the chemical enrichment history, the circulation of matter and energy during large-scale structure evolution, the stellar and black hole feedback, and all the plethora of processes underlying the gas mixing and virialization. With the launch in 2016 of the JAXA satellite ASTRO-H/Hitomi, the era of X-ray eV resolution spectroscopy started officially, despite the failure of the observatory soon after the launch. Still, the only spectrum collected from the core of the Perseus cluster was the base for at least 5 papers (one of which was on Nature), highlighting the remarkable impact of such kind of data. In 2023, a twin of Hitomi, XRISM, has been successfully launched. The spectra that it will soon collect will pave the way towards the exploitation of the next generation of X-ray instruments (from the ESA large mission newAthena in the late of 2030s, to the possible US Probe missions with a launch planned for early 2030s). The goal of this special session is to gather the community exploiting X-ray (and multi-wavelength at large) observations and hydrodynamical simulations to share and review the new results on the physics of the plasma that can be investigated through high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy.

Programme

We will focus the discussion on the following topics:

  • the metal enrichment: how, when, and where it occurs, and its relation to the star formation in member galaxies (1.5h: 2 invited talks of 30'; 2-3 contributed talks of 10-15');
  • the spatially and spectroscopically resolved characteristics of the feedback, turbulence, and motions in the ICM (1.5h: 2 invited talks of 30'; 2-3 contributed talks of 10-15');
  • how these phenomena impact the 2D and radial distribution of the energy and baryons in the ICM, and modify the predicted scaling relations with relevant implications both on cosmological and astrophysical studies with galaxy clusters (1.5h: 2 invited talks of 30'; 2-3 contributed talks of 10-15').

Invited speakers

  • Veronica Biffi (INAF-OA, Trieste, Italy)
  • Eugene Churazov (MPA, Garching, Germany)
  • Efrain Gatuzz (MPE, Garching, Germany)
  • Maxim Markevitch (NASA Goddard, US)
  • Francois Mernier (NASA Goddard, US)
  • Aurora Simionescu (SRON, The Netherlands)

Scientific organisers

S. Ettori (INAF-OAS Bologna, It), L. Lovisari (INAF-IASF Milano, It)

Contact

stefano.ettori @ inaf.it

Updated on Wed Mar 27 15:54:00 CET 2024