intercluster

Intercluster is an adjective used to describe anything situated or occurring between clusters. It is applied in several scientific and technical fields, most prominently in astronomy to denote material or structures that lie in the space separating galaxy clusters, and in computing to refer to activities that span multiple computing clusters.

In astronomy, the concept often relates to the intercluster medium, a diffuse, highly ionized component of the large-scale structure that fills the space between galaxy clusters within a supercluster or along the cosmic web. The intercluster medium is expected to be low density and hot, with temperatures associated with the warm-hot intergalactic medium, and it is studied through faint X-ray emission, absorption lines in the spectra of distant sources, and signals such as the Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect. Observations seek to map the distribution of baryons and understand how clusters connect to filaments in the growth of cosmic structure. The term intercluster light or diffuse starlight is less commonly used and is generally discussed in relation to intracluster light, which originates from stars bound within individual clusters.

In computing, intercluster refers to data exchange and coordination across separate computing clusters. Intercluster communications are relevant to high-performance computing, distributed storage, and large-scale cloud architectures. They involve network protocols, bandwidth and latency considerations, and security, with attention to tasks such as cross-cluster workload distribution, data replication, synchronization, and failover strategies.