A search for inter-cluster filaments with LOFAR and eROSITA

Abstract

Cosmological simulations predict the presence of warm hot thermal gas in the cosmic filaments that connect galaxy clusters. This gas is thought to constitute an important part of the missing baryons in the Universe. In addition to the thermal gas, cosmic filaments could contain a population of relativistic particles and magnetic fields. A detection of magnetic fields in filaments can constrain early magnetogenesis in the cosmos. So far, the resulting diffuse synchrotron emission has only been indirectly detected. We present our search for thermal and non-thermal diffuse emission from inter-cluster regions of 106 paired galaxy clusters by stacking the $0.6-2.3$~keV X-ray and 144~MHz radio data obtained with the eROSITA telescope on board the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) observatory and LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), respectively. The stacked data do not show the presence of X-ray and radio diffuse emission in the inter-cluster regions. This could be due to the sensitivity of the data sets and/or the limited number of cluster pairs used in this study. Assuming a constant radio emissivity in the filaments, we find that the mean radio emissivity is not higher than $1.2\times 10^{-44}\mathrm{erg}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^{-3}\mathrm{H}{\mathrm{z}}^{-1}$. Under equipartition conditions, our upper limit on the mean emissivity translates to an upper limit of $\sim 75\mathrm{nG}$ for the mean magnetic field strength in the filaments, depending on the spectral index and the minimum energy cutoff. We discuss the constraint for the magnetic field strength in the context of the models for the formation of magnetic fields in cosmic filaments.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication on MNRAS on June 5, 2023

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• Constraints on the magnetic field in the inter-cluster bridge A399-A401