Going from galaxy clusters to galaxy groups: Cooling flows, AGN activity, and co-evolution of supermassive black holes with brightest halo galaxies

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Galaxy clusters and groups are intricately tied to the formation and evolution of brightest cluster / group galaxies (BCGs/BGGs), and the co-evolution of supermassive black holes residing at centers of these galaxies. To understand the inherent scaling relations between BCGs/BGGs and both, their host halos as well as supermassive black holes, it is imperative to unravel the effects of physical processes, such as gas cooling and AGN heating, on the underlying parameters that tie the properties of these vastly different regimes of structures. In this proposal, we first briefly describe our recent contributions to this field based on a rich database comprising radio and X-ray observations of a statistically complete sample of cluster-scale halos and second, our proposed strategy to extend this analysis to the group scale. Feedback from an AGN embedded at the center of a shallower potential of a group-scale halo is likely to more severely affect the properties of the surrounding gas. Our aim is to combine results from the cluster-scale and group-scale studies to gain a more coherent and complete understanding of the evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes, along with the cooling and heating of the intracluster gas.