Cosmology Seminar: Clusters as Cosmic Laboratories: Modeling Advances for the Low Surface Brightness Regime

X-ray measurements of the Intracluster Medium (ICM) reveal the delicate balance between gravitational processes and AGN/stellar feedback that shape the formation and growth of Galaxy Clusters. Spatially-resolved radial profiles of ICM density, thermodynamics, and metallicity as a function of redshift allow us to probe the self-similarity of cluster evolution, resolve the history of cosmic enrichment in the Universe, and help constrain cosmological parameters. However, extending these measurements to the highest redshifts pushes us into a regime where even deep observations with current flagship X-ray observatories are challenged, as we attempt to measure source signals on par with the levels of astrophysical and instrumental backgrounds. In this talk, I will present a general, new forward-modeling approach to the analysis of Chandra and XMM-Newton observations that is proving highly effective, and which can set the standard of approaches that may be directed towards the analysis of observations made using the next generation of X-ray telescopes. I will detail our efforts to expand the joint X-ray coverage of known clusters at high-z, and highlight the application of our analysis methods to ACT-CL J0123.5-0428 at z=1.51, the highest redshift, dynamically relaxed, cool core galaxy cluster discovered to date.