How does our choice of observable influence our estimation of the centre of a galaxy cluster? Insights from cosmological simulations

© 2015 The Authors. Galaxy clusters are an established and powerful test-bed for theories of both galaxy evolution and cosmology. Accurate interpretation of cluster observations often requires robust identification of the location of the centre. Using a statistical sample of clusters drawn from a suite of cosmological simulations in which we have explored a range of galaxy formation models, we investigate how the location of this centre is affected by the choice of observable - stars, hot gas, or the full mass distribution as can be probed by the gravitational potential. We explore several measures of cluster centre: the minimum of the gravitational potential, which would expect to define the centre if the cluster is in dynamical equilibrium; the peak of the density; the centre of brightest cluster galaxy (BCG); and the peak and centroid of X-ray luminosity. We find that the centre of BCG correlates more strongly with the minimum of the gravitational potential than the X-ray defined centres, while active galactic nuclei feedback acts to significantly enhance the offset between the peak X-ray luminosity and minimum gravitational potential. These results highlight the importance of centre identification when interpreting clusters observations, in particular when comparing theoretical predictions and observational data.