Speaker
Description
Over the last two decades, significant progress has been made in understanding the physical processes observed in galaxy clusters. AGN feedback has emerged as the leading explanation for several longstanding astrophysical questions, including the origin of scaling relations between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, as well as the discrepancy between the predicted and observed baryonic content that has condensed into stars. Feedback mechanisms also play a crucial role in galaxy evolution, and recent simulations have shown that cosmological models need accurate prescriptions of AGN feedback to correctly predict the properties and distributions of galaxies and of the largest-scale structures
While feedback in these massive clusters is well studied, progress in the lower-mass regime of galaxy groups has been limited by observational constraints. Recently, SKA precursors and pathfinders such as LOFAR, uGMRT, and MeerKAT have obtained some initial interesting results. Examples include signatures of AGN overheating, which can significantly counteract the ongoing cooling of the Intra-Group Medium (IGrM); groups with largely evacuated environments due to powerful and prolonged feedback activity, something that has never been observed in clusters and which prevents the formation of a cool core; and remnant plasma detectable only at very low frequencies, displaced by large-scale sloshing motions, that demonstrate how the evolution of groups and AGN can strongly affect each other.
This talk will go through these recent advances, emphasising the current state of the art and the cosmological significance of galaxy groups while identifying gaps in our understanding. Furthermore, it will explore how SKA promises to close these gaps and revolutionise the field, offering new insights into the complex interactions that shape galaxy group evolution and dramatically enhancing the statistical power of future studies.
| Topics | Galaxy Clusters & LSS (relativistic particles and magnetic fields) |
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