Deprojection of X-ray data in galaxy clusters: confronting simulations with observations.

Numerical simulations with varying realism indicate an emergent principle−multiphase condensation and large cavity power occur when the ratio of the cooling time to the free-fall time (t cool/ t ff) falls below a threshold value close to 10. Observations indeed show cool-core signatures when this ratio falls below 20–30, but the prevalence of cores with t cool/ t ff  ratio below 10 is rare as compared to simulations. In X-ray observations, we obtain projected spectra from which we have to infer radial gas density and temperature profiles. Using idealized models of X-ray cavities and multiphase gas in the core and 3D hydro jet-ICM simulations, we quantify the biases introduced by deprojection based on the assumption of spherical symmetry in determining t cool/ t ff. We show that while the used methods are able to recover the t cool/ t ff ratio for relaxed clusters, they have an uncertainty of a factor of 2−3 in systems containing large cavities (≳ 20 kpc). We also show that the mass estimates from these methods, in the absence of X-ray spectra close to the virial radius, suffer from a degeneracy between the virial mass (M 200) and the concentration parameter (c) in the form of M 200 c 2 ≈ constant. Additionally, the lack of soft-X-ray (≲ 0.5 keV) coverage and poor spatial resolution makes us overestimate min(t cool/ t ff) by a factor of few in clusters with min(t cool/ t ff) ≲ 5. This bias can largely explain the lack of cool-core clusters with min(t cool/ t ff) ≲ 5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]