Galaxy infall by interacting with its environment: a comprehensive study of 340 galaxy clusters

To study systematically the evolution of the angular extents of the galaxy, intracluster medium (ICM), and dark matter components in galaxy clusters, we compiled the optical and X-ray properties of a sample of 340 clusters with redshifts <0.5, based on all the available data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Chandra/XMM-Newton. For each cluster, the member galaxies were determined primarily with photometric redshift measurements. The radial ICM mass distribution, as well as the total gravitational mass distribution, was derived from a spatially resolved spectral analysis of the X-ray data. When normalizing the radial profile of galaxy number to that of the ICM mass, the relative curve was found to depend significantly on the cluster redshift; it drops more steeply toward the outside in lower-redshift subsamples. The same evolution is found in the galaxy-to-total mass profile, while the ICM-to-total mass profile varies in an opposite way. The behavior of the galaxy-to-ICM distribution does not depend on the cluster mass, suggesting that the detected redshift dependence is not due to mass-related effects, such as sample selection bias. Also, it cannot be ascribed to various redshift-dependent systematic errors. We interpret that the galaxies, the ICM, and the dark matter components had similar angular distributions when a cluster was formed, while the galaxies traveling in the interior of the cluster have continuously fallen toward the center relative to the other components, and the ICM has slightly expanded relative to the dark matter although it suffers strong radiative loss. This cosmological galaxy infall, accompanied by an ICM expansion, can be explained by considering that the galaxies interact strongly with the ICM while they are moving through it. The interaction is considered to create a large energy flow of 1044?45 erg s?1 per cluster from the member galaxies to their environment, which is expected to continue over cosmological timescales.