The baryon content of groups and clusters of galaxies in the FABLE simulations

Abstract

ABSTRACT We study the gas and stellar mass content of galaxy groups and clusters in the fable suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, including the evolution of their central brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), satellite galaxies, and intracluster light (ICL). The total gas and stellar mass of fable clusters are in good agreement with observations and show negligible redshift evolution at fixed halo mass for $M_{500} \gtrsim 3 \times 10^{14} \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$ at z ≲ 1, in line with recent findings from Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ)-selected cluster samples. Importantly, the simulations predict significant redshift evolution in these quantities in the low-mass ($M_{500} \sim 10^{14} \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$) regime, which will be testable with upcoming SZ surveys such as SPT-3G. Whilst the stellar masses of fable BCGs are in reasonable agreement with observations, the total stellar mass in satellite galaxies is lower than observed and the total mass in ICL is somewhat higher. This may be caused by enhanced tidal stripping of satellite galaxies due to their large sizes. BCGs are characterized by moderate stellar mass growth at z < 1 coincident with a late-time development of the ICL. The level of BCG mass growth is in good agreement with recent observations; however, we caution that the inferred growth depends sensitively on the mass definition. We further show that in situ star formation contributes more than half the mass of a BCG over its lifetime, the bulk of which is gained at z > 1 where star formation rates are highest. The stellar mass profiles of the BCG+ICL component are similar to observed profiles out to ∼100 kpc at z ≈ 0 and follow a close to power law shape out to several hundred kpc. We further demonstrate that the inferred size growth of BCGs can be severely biased by the choice of parametric model and the outer radius of the fit.