Speaker
Description
A significant fraction of baryons in the universe live in diffuse large-scale structure, particularly in filamentary and bridge environments outside galaxy clusters. Galaxy cluster pairs and their connecting bridges provide an important laboratory for studying how matter flows between clusters and how heating, shocks, and feedback shape the intercluster medium. However, since these systems are dynamically and structurally complex, no single observable provides a complete physical picture. This makes a multi-wavelength approach essential for their study. WITCH (Where Is That Cluster Hiding) is a galaxy cluster modelling software package that was originally developed for SZ analysis. Presently, WITCH is being extended to incorporate X-ray data, with the goal of building a multi-wavelength tool for studying cluster pairs and intercluster bridges. These WITCH developments will allow for more realistic and flexible modeling of complex bridge geometries, while providing the framework for future applications using additional datasets such as radio data. As multi-wavelength cluster datasets continue to grow, having these flexible tools for joint modeling of diffuse baryons will become increasingly important for comparative studies across systems and will improve constraints on baryons in the cosmic web. In this talk, I will present the most recent updates from WITCH and discuss its development toward a broadly useful multi-wavelength tool for the field, while also providing some examples of its present usage with ACT data.
| Other topic / keywords: | galaxy clusters, bridges, software development, multi-wavelength analysis |
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