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Title: ON THE CLUSTER PHYSICS OF SUNYAEV-ZEL'DOVICH AND X-RAY SURVEYS. II. DECONSTRUCTING THE THERMAL SZ POWER SPECTRUM

Journal Article · · Astrophysical Journal
 [1]; ; ;  [2]
  1. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St George, Toronto, ON M5S 3H4 (Canada)
  2. Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, 60 St George, Toronto, ON M5S 3H8 (Canada)

Secondary anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background are a treasure-trove of cosmological information. Interpreting current experiments probing them are limited by theoretical uncertainties rather than by measurement errors. Here we focus on the secondary anisotropies resulting from the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect; the amplitude of which depends critically on the average thermal pressure profile of galaxy groups and clusters. To this end, we use a suite of hydrodynamical TreePM-SPH simulations that include radiative cooling, star formation, supernova feedback, and energetic feedback from active galactic nuclei. We examine in detail how the pressure profile depends on cluster radius, mass, and redshift and provide an empirical fitting function. We employ three different approaches for calculating the tSZ power spectrum: an analytical approach that uses our pressure profile fit, a semianalytical method of pasting our pressure fit onto simulated clusters, and a direct numerical integration of our simulated volumes. We demonstrate that the detailed structure of the intracluster medium and cosmic web affect the tSZ power spectrum. In particular, the substructure and asphericity of clusters increase the tSZ power spectrum by 10%-20% at l {approx} 2000-8000, with most of the additional power being contributed by substructures. The contributions to the power spectrum from radii larger than R {sub 500} is {approx}20% at l = 3000, thus clusters interiors (r < R {sub 500}) dominate the power spectrum amplitude at these angular scales.

OSTI ID:
22086551
Journal Information:
Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 758, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English