Schedule Mar 18, 2011
A First Estimate of Radio Halo Statistics from Large-scale Cosmological Simulation
Paul Sutter (UIUC)

We present a first estimate based on a cosmological gasdynamics simulation of galaxy cluster radio halo counts to be expected in forthcoming low-frequency radio surveys. Our estimate is based on a FLASH simulation of the LCDM model for which we have generated mock radio sky maps by using the observed mass-radio correlation for clusters to normalize projections of the turbulent gas pressure . We examine a generalized model where the acceleration of the cosmic rays responsible for radio halos can be proportional to intracluster turbulence, cluster gas density, or a combination of both. We find that radio halo counts depend significantly on the underlying assumptions on the generation of cosmic rays and the presumed strength of the intracluster magnetic fields.

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