Radio relics in galaxy clusters are extended synchrotron sources produced by cosmic-ray electrons in the microgauss magnetic field. Many relics are found in the cluster periphery and have a cluster-centric, narrow arc-like shape, which suggests that the electrons are accelerated or reaccelerated by merger shock fronts propagating outward in the intracluster plasma. In the X-ray, some relics do exhibit such shocks at the location of the relic, but many do not. We explore the possibility that radio relics trace not the shock fronts but the shape of the underlying distribution of seed relativistic electrons, lit up by a recent shock passage. We use magnetohydrodynamic simulations of cluster mergers and include bubbles of relativistic electrons injected by jets from the central active galactic nucleus or from an off-center radio galaxy. We show that the merger-driven gas motions (a) can advect the bubble cosmic rays to very large radii and (b) spread the relativistic seed electrons preferentially in the tangential direction—along the gravitational equipotential surfaces—producing extended, filamentary, or sheet-like regions of intracluster plasma enriched with aged cosmic rays, which resemble radio relics. Once a shock front passes across such a region, the sharp radio emission edges would trace the sharp boundaries of these enriched regions rather than the front. We also show that these elongated cosmic-ray features are naturally associated with magnetic fields stretched tangentially along their long axis, which could help explain the high polarization of relics.

Galaxy cluster mergers are a powerful laboratory for testing cosmological and astrophysical models. However, interpreting individual merging clusters depends crucially on their merger configuration, defined by the masses, velocities, impact parameters, and orientation of the merger axis with respect to the plane of the sky. In this work, we investigate the impact of merger parameters on the X-ray emitting intracluster medium and gravitational lensing maps using a suite of idealized simulations of binary cluster mergers performed using the gamer-2 code. As a test case, we focus on modelling the Bullet Cluster-like merging system Abell 2146, in which deep Chandra X-ray and lensing observations revealed prominent merger shocks as well as the mass distribution and substructures associated with this merging cluster. We identify the most interesting parameter combinations, and evaluate the effects of various parameters on the properties of merger shocks observed by deep Chandra and lensing observations. We show that due to gravitational compression of the cluster haloes during the merger, previous mass estimates from weak lensing are too high. The plane of the merger is tilted further from the plane of the sky than estimated previously, up to 30° from the plane of the sky. We discuss the applicability of our results to multiwavelength observations of merging galaxy clusters and their use as probes of cosmology and plasma physics.

Recent studies have highlighted the potential significance of intracluster medium (ICM) clumping and its important implications for cluster cosmology and baryon physics. Many of the ICM clumps can originate from infalling galaxies, as stripped interstellar medium (ISM) mixing into the hot ICM. However, a direct connection between ICM clumping and stripped ISM has not been unambiguously established before. Here we present the discovery of the first and still the only known isolated cloud (or orphan cloud; OC) detected in both X-rays and Hα in the nearby cluster A1367. With an effective radius of 30 kpc, this cloud has an average X-ray temperature of 1.6 keV, a bolometric X-ray luminosity of ∼3.1 × 1041 erg s−1 and a hot gas mass of ∼1010 M⊙. From the MUSE data, the OC shows an interesting velocity gradient nearly along the east-west direction with a low level of velocity dispersion of ∼80 km s−1, which may suggest a low level of the ICM turbulence. The emission line diagnostics suggest little star formation in the main Hα cloud and a LI(N)ER-like spectrum, but the excitation mechanisms remain unclear. This example shows that stripped ISM, even long after the initial removal from the galaxy, can still induce ICM inhomogeneities. We suggest that the magnetic field can stabilize the OC by suppressing hydrodynamic instabilities and thermal conduction. This example also suggests that at least some ICM clumps are multi-phase in nature and implies that the ICM clumps can also be traced in Hα. Thus, future deep and wide-field Hα surveys can be used to probe the ICM clumping and turbulence.