ABSTRACT
We search for the signature of cosmological shocks in stacked gas pressure profiles of galaxy clusters using data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT). Specifically, we stack the latest ...Compton-y maps from the 2500 deg2 SPT-SZ survey on the locations of clusters identified in that same data set. The sample contains 516 clusters with mean mass $\langle M_{\rm 200m}\rangle = 10^{14.9} \, {\rm M}_\odot$ and redshift 〈z〉 = 0.55. We analyse in parallel a set of zoom-in hydrodynamical simulations from the three hundred project. The SPT-SZ data show two features: (i) a pressure deficit at R/R200m = 1.08 ± 0.09, measured at 3.1σ significance and not observed in the simulations, and; (ii) a sharp decrease in pressure at R/R200m = 4.58 ± 1.24 at 2.0σ significance. The pressure deficit is qualitatively consistent with a shock-induced thermal non-equilibrium between electrons and ions, and the second feature is consistent with accretion shocks seen in previous studies. We split the cluster sample by redshift and mass, and find both features exist in all cases. There are also no significant differences in features along and across the cluster major axis, whose orientation roughly points towards filamentary structure. As a consistency test, we also analyse clusters from the Planck and Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter surveys and find quantitatively similar features in the pressure profiles. Finally, we compare the accretion shock radius ($R_{\rm sh,\, acc}$) with existing measurements of the splashback radius (Rsp) for SPT-SZ and constrain the lower limit of the ratio, $R_{\rm sh,\, acc}/R_{\rm sp}\gt 2.16 \pm 0.59$.
We present a measurement of the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) using data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT). The data consist of 790 deg2 of sky observed at 150 GHz ...during 2008 and 2009. Here we present the power spectrum over the multipole range 650 < l < 3000, where it is dominated by primary CMB anisotropy. We combine this power spectrum with the power spectra from the seven-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data release to constrain cosmological models. We find that the SPT and WMAP data are consistent with each other and, when combined, are well fit by a spatially flat, Delta *LCDM cosmological model. The SPT+WMAP constraint on the spectral index of scalar fluctuations is ns = 0.9663 ? 0.0112. We detect, at ~5 Delta *s significance, the effect of gravitational lensing on the CMB power spectrum, and find its amplitude to be consistent with the Delta *LCDM cosmological model. We explore a number of extensions beyond the Delta *LCDM model. Each extension is tested independently, although there are degeneracies between some of the extension parameters. We constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio to be r < 0.21 (95% CL) and constrain the running of the scalar spectral index to be dns /dln k = --0.024 ? 0.013. We strongly detect the effects of primordial helium and neutrinos on the CMB; a model without helium is rejected at 7.7 Delta *s, while a model without neutrinos is rejected at 7.5 Delta *s. The primordial helium abundance is measured to be Yp = 0.296 ? 0.030, and the effective number of relativistic species is measured to be N eff = 3.85 ? 0.62. The constraints on these models are strengthened when the CMB data are combined with measurements of the Hubble constant and the baryon acoustic oscillation feature. Notable improvements include ns = 0.9668 ? 0.0093, r < 0.17 (95% CL), and N eff = 3.86 ? 0.42. The SPT+WMAP data show a mild preference for low power in the CMB damping tail, and while this preference may be accommodated by models that have a negative spectral running, a high primordial helium abundance, or a high effective number of relativistic species, such models are disfavored by the abundance of low-redshift galaxy clusters.
We present component-separated maps of the primary cosmic microwave background/kinematic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) amplitude and the thermal SZ Compton-y parameter, created using data from the South ...Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Planck satellite. These maps, which cover the ∼2500 deg2 of the southern sky imaged by the SPT-SZ survey, represent a significant improvement over previous such products available in this region by virtue of their higher angular resolution (1.′25 for our highest-resolution Compton-y maps) and lower noise at small angular scales. In this work we detail the construction of these maps using linear combination techniques, including our method for limiting the correlation of our lowest-noise Compton-y map products with the cosmic infrared background. We perform a range of validation tests on these data products to test our sky modeling and combination algorithms, and we find good performance in all of these tests. Recognizing the potential utility of these data products for a wide range of astrophysical and cosmological analyses, including studies of the gas properties of galaxies, groups, and clusters, we make these products publicly available at http://pole.uchicago.edu/public/data/sptsz_ymap and on the NASA/LAMBDA website.
Abstract
We show the improvement to cosmological constraints from galaxy cluster surveys with the addition of cosmic microwave background (CMB)-cluster lensing data. We explore the cosmological ...implications of adding mass information from the 3.1
σ
detection of gravitational lensing of the CMB by galaxy clusters to the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) selected galaxy cluster sample from the 2500 deg
2
SPT-SZ survey and targeted optical and X-ray follow-up data. In the ΛCDM model, the combination of the cluster sample with the Planck power spectrum measurements prefers
σ
8
Ω
m
/
0.3
0.5
=
0.831
±
0.020
. Adding the cluster data reduces the uncertainty on this quantity by a factor of 1.4, which is unchanged whether the 3.1
σ
CMB-cluster lensing measurement is included or not. We then forecast the impact of CMB-cluster lensing measurements with future cluster catalogs. Adding CMB-cluster lensing measurements to the SZ cluster catalog of the ongoing SPT-3G survey is expected to improve the expected constraint on the dark energy equation of state
w
by a factor of 1.3 to
σ
(
w
) = 0.19. We find the largest improvements from CMB-cluster lensing measurements to be for
σ
8
, where adding CMB-cluster lensing data to the cluster number counts reduces the expected uncertainty on
σ
8
by respective factors of 2.4 and 3.6 for SPT-3G and CMB-S4.
We present the first three-frequency South Pole Telescope (SPT) cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectra. The band powers presented here cover angular scales 2000 < l < 9400 in frequency bands ...centered at 95, 150, and 220 GHz. At these frequencies and angular scales, a combination of the primary CMB anisotropy, thermal and kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effects, radio galaxies, and cosmic infrared background (CIB) contributes to the signal. We combine Planck/HFI and SPT data at 220 GHz to constrain the amplitude and shape of the CIB power spectrum and find strong evidence for nonlinear clustering. We explore the SZ results using a variety of cosmological models for the CMB and CIB anisotropies and find them to be robust with one exception: allowing for spatial correlations between the thermal SZ effect and CIB significantly degrades the SZ constraints. Neglecting this potential correlation, we find the thermal SZ power at 150 GHz and l = 3000 to be 3.65 + or - 0.69 mu K super(2), and set an upper limit on the kinetic SZ power to be less than 2.8 mu K super(2) at 95% confidence. When a correlation between the thermal SZ and CIB is allowed, we constrain a linear combination of thermal and kinetic SZ power: D super(tSZ) sub(3000) + 0.5D sub(3000) super(kSZ) = 4.60 + or - 0.63 mu K super(2), consistent with earlier measurements. We use the measured thermal SZ power and an analytic, thermal SZ model calibrated with simulations to determine sigma sub(8) = 0.807 + or - 0.016. Modeling uncertainties involving the astrophysics of the intracluster medium rather than the statistical uncertainty in the measured band powers are the dominant source of uncertainty on sigma sub(8). We also place an upper limit on the kinetic SZ power produced by patchy reionization; a companion paper uses these limits to constrain the reionization history of the universe.
ABSTRACT
The use of galaxy clusters as precision cosmological probes relies on an accurate determination of their masses. However, inferring the relationship between cluster mass and observables from ...direct observations is difficult and prone to sample selection biases. In this work, we use weak lensing as the best possible proxy for cluster mass to calibrate the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) effect measurements from the APEX-SZ experiment. For a well-defined (ROSAT) X-ray complete cluster sample, we calibrate the integrated Comptonization parameter, YSZ, to the weak-lensing derived total cluster mass, M500. We employ a novel Bayesian approach to account for the selection effects by jointly fitting both the SZ Comptonization, YSZ–M500, and the X-ray luminosity, Lx–M500, scaling relations. We also account for a possible correlation between the intrinsic (lognormal) scatter of Lx and YSZ at fixed mass. We find the corresponding correlation coefficient to be $r= 0.47_{-0.35}^{+0.24}$, and at the current precision level our constraints on the scaling relations are consistent with previous works. For our APEX-SZ sample, we find that ignoring the covariance between the SZ and X-ray observables biases the normalization of the YSZ–M500 scaling high by 1–2σ and the slope low by ∼1σ, even when the SZ effect plays no role in the sample selection. We conclude that for higher precision data and larger cluster samples, as anticipated from on-going and near-future cluster cosmology experiments, similar biases (due to intrinsic covariances of cluster observables) in the scaling relations will dominate the cosmological error budget if not accounted for correctly.
We reconstruct the gravitational lensing convergence signal from cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization data taken by the Polarbear experiment and cross-correlate it with cosmic infrared ...background maps from the Herschel satellite. From the cross spectra, we obtain evidence for gravitational lensing of the CMB polarization at a statistical significance of 4.0σ and indication of the presence of a lensing B-mode signal at a significance of 2.3σ. We demonstrate that our results are not biased by instrumental and astrophysical systematic errors by performing null tests, checks with simulated and real data, and analytical calculations. This measurement of polarization lensing, made via the robust cross-correlation channel, not only reinforces POLARBEAR auto-correlation measurements, but also represents one of the early steps towards establishing CMB polarization lensing as a powerful new probe of cosmology and astrophysics.
ABSTRACT The millimeter transient sky is largely unexplored, with measurements limited to follow-up of objects detected at other wavelengths. High-angular-resolution telescopes, designed for ...measurement of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), offer the possibility to discover new, unknown transient sources in this band-particularly the afterglows of unobserved gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Here, we use the 10 m millimeter-wave South Pole Telescope, designed for the primary purpose of observing the CMB at arcminute and larger angular scales, to conduct a search for such objects. During the 2012-2013 season, the telescope was used to continuously observe a 100 deg2 patch of sky centered at R.A. 23h30m and decl. −55° using the polarization-sensitive SPTpol camera in two bands centered at 95 and 150 GHz. These 6000 hr of observations provided continuous monitoring for day- to month-scale millimeter-wave transient sources at the 10 mJy level. One candidate object was observed with properties broadly consistent with a GRB afterglow, but at a statistical significance too low (p = 0.01) to confirm detection.
We present thermal Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect (SZE) measurements for 42 galaxy clusters observed at 150 GHz with the APEX-SZ experiment. For each cluster, we model the pressure profile and calculate ...the integrated Comptonization Y to estimate the total thermal energy of the intracluster medium (ICM). We compare the measured Y values to X-ray observables of the ICM from the literature (cluster gas mass M
gas, temperature T
X
, and Y
X
= M
gas
T
X
) that relate to total cluster mass. We measure power-law scaling relations, including an intrinsic scatter, between the SZE and X-ray observables for three subsamples within the set of 42 clusters that have uniform X-ray analysis in the literature. We observe that differences between these X-ray analyses introduce significant variance into the measured scaling relations, particularly affecting the normalization. For all three subsamples, we find results consistent with a self-similar model of cluster evolution dominated by gravitational effects. Comparing to predictions from numerical simulations, these scaling relations prefer models that include cooling and feedback in the ICM. Lastly, we measure an intrinsic scatter of ∼28 per cent in the Y − Y
X
scaling relation for all three subsamples.
We present three maps of the millimeter-wave sky created by combining data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Planck satellite. We use data from the SPT-SZ survey, a survey of 2540 deg2 of ...the the sky with arcminute resolution in three bands centered at 95, 150, and 220 GHz, and the full-mission Planck temperature data in the 100, 143, and 217 GHz bands. A linear combination of the SPT-SZ and Planck data is computed in spherical harmonic space, with weights derived from the noise of both instruments. This weighting scheme results in Planck data providing most of the large-angular-scale information in the combined maps, with the smaller-scale information coming from SPT-SZ data. A number of tests have been done on the maps. We find their angular power spectra to agree very well with theoretically predicted spectra and previously published results.
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