Non-gravitational heating mechanisms in cosmological simulations of galaxy cluster formation

The study of the formation and growth of cosmic structures is one of the most fascinating and challenging fields of astrophysics. Galaxy clusters, the largest objects in the Universe, represent ideal laboratories to study which physical processes are important in shaping the Universe as we see it today. From the study of galaxy clusters one can infer the properties of a number of astrophysical objects and gain knowledge about their mutual interplay. However, it is necessary to consider a vast range of scales, starting from the sphere of influence of very tiny, but very powerful objects - the active black holes, up to the size of galaxy clusters, which harbor these massive black holes, and that are a million times bigger. Numerical simulations are able to track accurately the physical processes acting on this wide range of scales, and thus provide a very powerful tool to understand why galaxy cluster properties are as observed with the new generation of X-ray and optical telescopes. With the increasing power of cosmological simulations, it is possible now for the first time to include faithfully the crucial physical processes, such as the feedback from the active black holes, to obtain a more realistic picture of the cosmic structure formation. However, so far many important aspects of black hole growth and activity have not been explored directly in numerical simulations of structure formation. Therefore, it would be extremely exciting to try to incorporate the complex physics of black hole activity in the numerical schemes. This would allow to explore the Universe at very early times, when the first massive black holes were shining as powerful quasars. Moreover, with these sophisticated numerical models the properties of the present day population of galaxies, whose evolution has been modified by the central black hole activity, could be understood in more depth. Furthermore, a detailed comparison of the numerical simulations with the plethora of new observational data, could give insights which physical processes at certain cosmological epochs are responsible for the evolution of cosmic structures.