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Session 102 - Clusters of Galaxies.
Display session, Thursday, January 16
Metropolitan Ballroom,
We perform a series of N-body experiments to determine whether sub-structure in galaxy clusters is a long lasting effect, or simply a short lived stage in the evolution of a cluster. From simulations of 128^3 particles we extract groups of particles using a friends-of-a-friend algorithm which we take as our clusters. Using a variety of statistical methods first described by Bird (1994) we find that the final evolved state of the clusters all exhibit sub-structure, regardless of spectral index and the value of Ømega_0. We find a small difference in the abundance of sub-structure between critical density models and low density models, and conclude that based upon the low resolution models sub-structure is not a useful diagnostic of the cosmological initial conditions.
To check for the existence of particle discreteness effects we apply the Nested-Grid Particle Mesh code of Splinter (1996) to a subset of the original clusters. Using this code with its higher force and mass resolution we will be able to make definitive statements regarding the existence of substructure.
