Vladimir Avila-Reese
México – Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
It’s time of the intracluster light: how hydrodynamical simulations help study the most extended stellar systems of the Universe
Abstract: The development of sophisticated observational technologies and the implementation of massive observational programs are making it possible to study, in number and depth, the very diffuse and extended light of galaxy clusters, the so-called intracluster light (ICL), like never before. This is a stellar component mainly associated with the gravitational potential of the entire cluster, where dark matter dominates. To understand the nature and origin of these huge but diffuse stellar systems, it is crucial to properly separate this component from the brightest central galaxy (BCG) and characterize its surface brightness distribution (e.g., a Sérsic law), as well as its kinematics. To our aid come hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of galaxy clusters, which must be post-processed to assign spectra to stellar particles and to obtain synthetic observations comparable to real observations. I will present a review of progress in this direction, the state of the art in understanding the origin of the ICL, the challenges we still have, and inferences about the distribution of dark matter that could be made from ICL observations. I will also present some preliminary results from our group on analysis and comparison with observations from post-processed lllustris-TNG300 cluster simulations.