(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae and/or non-USASCII text omitted) We describe the measurement of the beam profiles and window functions for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), which operated from ...2007 to 2010 with kilopixel bolometer arrays centered at 148, 218, and 277 GHz. Maps of Saturn are used to measure the beam shape in each array and for each season of observations. Radial profiles are transformed to Fourier space in a way that preserves the spatial correlations in the beam uncertainty to derive window functions relevant for angular power spectrum analysis. Several corrections are applied to the resulting beam transforms, including an empirical correction measured from the final cosmic microwave background (CMB) survey maps to account for the effects of mild pointing variation and alignment errors. Observations of Uranus made regularly throughout each observing season are used to measure the effects of atmospheric opacity and to monitor deviations in telescope focus over the season. Using the WMAP-based calibration of the ACT maps to the CMB blackbody, we obtain precise measurements of the brightness temperatures of the Uranus and Saturn disks at effective frequencies of 149 and 219 GHz. For Uranus we obtain thermodynamic brightness temperatures ... = 106.7 + or - 2.2 K and ... = 100.1+ or -3.1 K. For Saturn, we model the effects of the ring opacity and emission using a simple model and obtain resulting (unobscured) disk temperatures of ... = 137.3 + or - 3.2 K and ... = 137.3 + or - 4.7 K.
We present the optical and X-ray properties of 68 galaxy clusters selected via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect at 148 GHz by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). Our sample, from an area of 504 ...degsup 2 centered on the celestial equator, is divided into two regions. The main region uses 270 degsup 2 of the ACT survey that overlaps with the co-added ugriz imaging from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) over Stripe 82 plus additional near-infrared pointed observations with the Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m telescope. We confirm a total of 49 clusters to z approximate 1.3, of which 22 are new discoveries. We present the optical richness, photometric redshifts, and separation between the SZ position and the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG). We also present X-ray fluxes and luminosities from the ROSAT All Sky Survey which confirm that this is a massive sample.
Using high-resolution microwave sky maps made by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, we for the first time present strong evidence for motions of galaxy clusters and groups via microwave background ...temperature distortions due to the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. Galaxy clusters are identified by their constituent luminous galaxies observed by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. We measure the mean pairwise momentum of clusters, with a probability of the signal being due to random errors of 0.002, and the signal is consistent with the growth of cosmic structure in the standard model of cosmology.
We present a detailed analysis from new multi-wavelength observations of the exceptional galaxy cluster ACT-CL J0102-4915, likely the most massive, hottest, most X-ray luminous and brightest ...Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect cluster known at redshifts greater than 0.6. The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) collaboration discovered ACT-CL J0102-4915 as the most significant SZ decrement in a sky survey area of 755 deg super(2). Our Very Large Telescope (VLT)/FORS2 spectra of 89 member galaxies yield a cluster redshift, z = 0.870, and velocity dispersion, sigma sub(gal) = 1321 + or - 106 km s super(-1). Our Chandra observations reveal a hot and X-ray luminous system with an integrated temperature of T sub(X) = 14.5 + or - 0.1 keV and 0.5-2.0 keV band luminosity of L sub(X) = (2.19 + or - 0.11) x 10 super(45) h super(-2) sub(70) erg s super(-1). We obtain several statistically consistent cluster mass estimates; using empirical mass scaling relations with velocity dispersion, X-ray Y sub(X), and integrated SZ distortion, we estimate a cluster mass of M sub(200)a = (2.16 + or - 0.32) x 10 super(15) h super(-1) sub(70) M sub(middot in circle). We constrain the stellar content of the cluster to be less than 1% of the total mass, using Spitzer IRAC and optical imaging. The Chandra and VLT/FORS2 optical data also reveal that ACT-CL J0102-4915 is undergoing a major merger between components with a mass ratio of approximately 2 to 1. The X-ray data show significant temperature variations from a low of 6.6 + or - 0.7 keV at the merging low-entropy, high-metallicity, cool core to a high of 22 + or - 6 keV. We also see a wake in the X-ray surface brightness and deprojected gas density caused by the passage of one cluster through the other. Archival radio data at 843 MHz reveal diffuse radio emission that, if associated with the cluster, indicates the presence of an intense double radio relic, hosted by the highest redshift cluster yet. ACT-CL J0102-4915 is possibly a high-redshift analog of the famous Bullet cluster. Such a massive cluster at this redshift is rare, although consistent with the standard LambdaCDM cosmology in the lower part of its allowed mass range. Massive, high-redshift mergers like ACT-CL J0102-4915 are unlikely to be reproduced in the current generation of numerical N-body cosmological simulations.
We present the first dynamical mass estimates and scaling relations for a sample of Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE) selected galaxy clusters. The sample consists of 16 massive clusters detected with ...the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) over a 455 deg super(2) area of the southern sky. The dynamical masses M sub(200)c of the clusters have been calculated using simulation-based scaling relations between velocity dispersion and mass. These masses are compared to the ACT SZE properties of the sample, specifically, the match-filtered central SZE amplitude y sub(0), the central Compton parameter y sub(0), and the integrated Compton signal Y sub(200)c, which we use to derive SZE-mass scaling relations. All SZE estimators correlate with dynamical mass with low intrinsic scatter (lap20%), in agreement with numerical simulations. There are hints that disturbed systems might bias the scaling relations, but given the current sample sizes, these differences are not significant; further studies including more clusters are required to assess the impact of these clusters on the scaling relations.
We present constraints on the primordial power spectrum of adiabatic fluctuations using data from the 2008 Southern Survey of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in combination with measurements ...from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and a prior on the Hubble constant. The angular resolution of ACT provides sensitivity to scales beyond l = 1000 for resolution of multiple peaks in the primordial temperature power spectrum, which enables us to probe the primordial power spectrum of adiabatic scalar perturbations with wavenumbers up to k Asymptotically = to0.2 Mpc super(-1). We find no evidence for deviation from power-law fluctuations over two decades in scale. Matter fluctuations inferred from the primordial temperature power spectrum evolve over cosmic time and can be used to predict the matter power spectrum at late times; we illustrate the overlap of the matter power inferred from cosmic microwave background measurements (which probe the power spectrum in the linear regime) with existing probes of galaxy clustering, cluster abundances, and weak-lensing constraints on the primordial power. This highlights the range of scales probed by current measurements of the matter power spectrum.
We present a description of the data reduction and mapmaking pipeline used for the 2008 observing season of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). The data presented here at 148 GHz represent 12% of ...the 90 TB collected by ACT from 2007 to 2010. In 2008 we observed for 136 days, producing a total of 1423 hr of data (11 TB for the 148 GHz band only), with a daily average of 10.5 hr of observation. The remaining 163 hr correspond to calibration runs. Atmospheric brightness fluctuations constitute the main contaminant in the data and dominate the detector noise covariance at low frequencies in the TOD. The maps were made by solving the least-squares problem using the Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient method, incorporating the details of the detector and noise correlations. Simulations, as well as cross-correlations with Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe sky maps on large angular scales, reveal that our maps are unbiased at multipoles l > 300. This paper accompanies the public release of the 148 GHz southern stripe maps from 2008. The techniques described here will be applied to future maps and data releases.
We present the measured Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) flux from 474 optically selected MaxBCG clusters that fall within the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Equatorial survey region. The ACT Equatorial ...region used in this analysis covers 510 degsup 2 and overlaps Stripe 82 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We also present the measured SZ flux stacked on 52 X-ray-selected MCXC clusters that fall within the ACT Equatorial region and an ACT Southern survey region covering 455 degsup 2. We find that the measured SZ flux from the X-ray-selected clusters is consistent with expectations. Since we find a lower recovered SZ signal than Planck, we investigate the possibility that there is a significant offset between the optically selected brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) and the SZ centers, to which ACT is more sensitive due to its finer resolution. In the latter two cases, the effects would need to be preferentially more significant in the optically selected MaxBCG sample than in the MCXC X-ray sample.
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