Brightest Cluster Galaxies in Cosmological Simulations with Adaptive
  Mesh Refinement: Successes and Failures
  A large sample of cosmological hydrodynamical zoom-in simulations with
Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) is analysed to study the properties of simulated
Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs). Following the formation and evolution of
BCGs requires modeling an entire galaxy cluster, because the BCG properties are
largely influenced by the state of the gas in the cluster and by interactions
and mergers with satellites. BCG evolution is also deeply influenced by the
presence of gas heating sources such as Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) that
prevent catastrophic cooling of large amounts of gas. We show that AGN feedback
is one of the most important mechanisms in shaping the properties of BCGs at
low redshift by analysing our statistical sample of simulations with and
without AGN feedback. When AGN feedback is included BCG masses, sizes, star
formation rates and kinematic properties are closer to those of the observed
systems. Some small discrepancies are observed only for the most massive BCGs
and in the fraction of star-forming BCGs, effects that might be due to physical
processes that are not included in our model.
