The Three Hundred Project: Correcting for the hydrostatic-equilibrium mass bias in X-ray and SZ surveys

Abstract

Accurate and precise measurement of the masses of galaxy clusters is key to deriving robust constraints on cosmological parameters. However, increasing evidence from observations confirms that X-ray masses obtained under the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium might be underestimated, as previously predicted by cosmological simulations. We analyze more than 300 simulated massive clusters from the Three Hundred Project, and investigate the connection between mass bias and several diagnostics extracted from synthetic X-ray images of these simulated clusters. We find that the azimuthal scatter measured in 12 sectors of the X-ray flux maps is a statistically significant indication of the presence of an intrinsic (i.e., 3D) clumpy gas distribution. We verify that a robust correction to the hydrostatic mass bias can be inferred when estimates of the gas inhomogeneity from X-ray maps (such as the azimuthal scatter or the gas ellipticity) are combined with the asymptotic external slope of the gas density or pressure profiles, which can be respectively derived from X-ray and millimeter (Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect) observations. We also obtain that mass measurements based on either gas density and temperature or gas density and pressure result in similar distributions of the mass bias. In both cases, we provide corrections that help reduce both the dispersion and skewness of the mass bias distribution. These are effective even when irregular clusters are included leading to interesting implications for the modeling and correction of hydrostatic mass bias in cosmological analyses of current and future X-ray and SZ cluster surveys.