CHEX-MATE: The intracluster medium entropy distribution in the gravity-dominated regime

We characterise the intracluster gas entropy profiles of 32 very high-mass (M₅₀₀ > 7.75 × 10¹⁴ M_⊙) Planck SZ-detected galaxy clusters (HIGHMz), selected from the CHEX-MATE sample, allowing us to study the intracluster medium (ICM) entropy distribution in a regime where non-gravitational effects are expected to be minimised. Using XMM-Newton measurements, we determined the entropy profiles up to ∼R₅₀₀ for all objects. We assessed the relative role of gas density and temperature measurements on the uncertainty in entropy reconstruction, showing that in the outer regions the largest contribution comes from the temperature. The scaled profiles exhibit a large dispersion in the central regions, but converge rapidly to the value expected from simple gravitational collapse beyond the core regions. We quantified the correlation between the ICM morphological parameters and scaled entropy as a function of radius, showing that centrally peaked objects have low central entropy, while morphologically disturbed objects have high central entropy. We compared the scaled HIGHMz entropy profiles to results from other observational samples, finding differences in normalisation, which appear linked to the average mass of the samples in question. Combining HIGHMz with other samples, we found that a weaker mass dependence than self-similar in the scaling (A_m ∼ ‑0.25) allows us to minimise the dispersion in the radial range [0.3 ‑ 0.8] R₅₀₀ for clusters spanning over a decade in mass. The deviation from self-similar predictions is radially dependent and is more pronounced at small and intermediate radii than at R₅₀₀. We also investigated the distribution of central entropy K₀, finding no evidence for bimodality in the data and outer slope α, which peaks at α ∼ 1.1 with tails at both low and high α that correlate with dynamical state. Using weak-lensing masses for half of the sample, we found an indication for a small suppression of the scatter (∼30%) beyond the core when using masses derived from Y_X in the rescaling. Finally, we compared our results to recent cosmological numerical simulations from THE THREE HUNDRED and MACSIS, finding good agreement with the observational data in this mass regime. These results provide a robust observational benchmark in the gravity-dominated regime, and will serve as a future reference for samples at lower masses, higher redshifts, and for ongoing work using cosmological numerical simulations.