The cosmological dependence of cluster density profiles

Abstract

We use N-body simulations to study the shape of mean cluster density and velocity profiles formed via gravitational instability. The dependence of the final structure on both cosmology and initial density field is examined, using a grid of cosmologies and scale-free initial power spectra P\propto k^n. For each model, we stack clusters to define an average density profile in the non-linear regime. The profiles are well fit by a power law over 99% of the cluster volume, with a clear trend toward steeper slopes with both increasing n and decreasing Omega_o. For models with a Omega_o = 0.2, the profile slopes are consistently higher than those for Omega-1.0. Cluster density profiles are thus potentially useful cosmological diagnostics. We find no evidence for a constant density core in any of the models, although the density profiles do tend to flatten at small radii. Much of the flattening is due to the force softening required by the simulations, and an attempt is made to recover the unsoftened profiles assuming angular momentum invariance. The recovered profiles in the Omega=1 cosmologies are consistent with a pure power law up to the highest density contrasts (10^6) accessible with our resolution. The low density models show significant deviations from a power law above density contrasts \sim 10^5. We interpret this curvature as reflecting the non scale-invariant nature of the background cosmology in these models.

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Affiliated Institutions

• University of Michigan US

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