We study the effects of two popular modified gravity theories, which incorporate very different screening mechanisms, on the angular power spectra of the thermal (tSZ) and kinematic (kSZ) components of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. Using the first cosmological simulations that simultaneously incorporate both screened modified gravity and a complete galaxy formation model, we find that the tSZ and kSZ power spectra are significantly enhanced by the strengthened gravitational forces in Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ gravity and the normal-branch Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati model. Employing a combination of non-radiative and full-physics simulations, we find that the extra baryonic physics present in the latter acts to suppress the tSZ power on angular scales $l\gtrsim3000$ and the kSZ power on all tested scales, and this is found to have a substantial effect on the model differences. Our results indicate that the tSZ and kSZ power can be used as powerful probes of gravity on large scales, using data from current and upcoming surveys, provided sufficient work is conducted to understand the sensitivity of the constraints to baryonic processes that are currently not fully understood.
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons that scatter off free electrons in the large-scale structure induce a linear polarization pattern proportional to the remote CMB temperature quadrupole observed in the electrons' rest frame. The associated blackbody polarization anisotropies are known as the polarized Sunyaev Zel'dovich (pSZ) effect. Relativistic corrections to the remote quadrupole field give rise to a non-blackbody polarization anisotropy proportional to the square of the transverse peculiar velocity field; this is the kinetic polarized Sunyaev Zel'dovich (kpSZ) effect. In this p…
The thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) and the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effects trace the distribution of electron pressure and momentum in the hot Universe. These observables depend on rich multi-scale physics, thus, simulated maps should ideally be based on calculations that capture baryonic feedback effects such as cooling, star formation, and other complex processes. In this paper, we train deep convolutional neural networks with a U-Net architecture to map from the three-dimensional distribution of dark matter to electron density, momentum and pressure at ~ 100 kpc resolution. The…
We introduce a novel approach, the Cosmological Trajectories Method (CTM), to model nonlinear structure formation in the Universe by expanding gravitationally-induced particle trajectories around the Zel'dovich approximation. A new Beyond Zel'dovich approximation is presented, which expands the CTM to leading second-order in the gravitational interaction and allows for post-Born gravitational scattering. In the Beyond Zel'dovich approximation we derive the exact expression for the matter clustering power spectrum. This is calculated to leading order and is available in the CTM MODULE. We compa…
We measure the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) skewness power spectrum in $\textit{Planck}$, using frequency maps of the HFI instrument and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) component map. The two-to-one skewness power spectrum measures the cross-correlation between CMB lensing and the thermal SZ effect. We also directly measure the same cross-correlation using $\textit{Planck}$ CMB lensing map and the SZ map and compare it to the cross-correlation derived from the skewness power spectrum. We model fit the SZ power spectrum and CMB lensing-SZ cross power spectrum via the skewness power spectrum to…
The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect is the ideal probe for investigating the outskirts of galaxy clusters. To map this signal, we apply a spectral imaging technique which combines parametric component separation and sparse representations. Our procedure is an improved version of an existing algorithm, which now features a better treatment of astrophysical contaminants, and the implementation of a new beam deconvolution. We use the most recent frequency maps delivered by \textsl{Planck}, and we consider the clusters analysed in the \textsl{XMM} Cluster Outskirts Project (X-COP). In particular, we foc…
On the better constraints from the South Pole Telescope Sunyaev-Zel'dovich galaxy clusters survey: a FoM evaluation for the equation of state of Dark Energy
We consider the effect of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) frequency spectral distortions arising due to the Compton scattering of the anisotropic radiation on Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) clusters. We derive the correction to the thermal SZ effect due to the presence of multipoles with $\ell=1,2,3$ in the anisotropy of the CMB radiation. We show that this effect gives us an opportunity for an independent evaluation of the CMB dipole, quadrupole and octupole angular anisotropy in our location using distorted signal from the nearby galaxy clusters and to distinguish between the Sachs-Wolfe (SW)…
We stack maps of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect produced by the Planck Collaboration around the centers of cosmic voids defined by the distribution of galaxies in the CMASS sample of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, scaled by the void effective radii. We report a first detection of the associated cross-correlation at the $3.4σ$ level: voids are under-pressured relative to the cosmic mean. We compare the measured Compton-$y$ profile around voids with a model based solely on the spatial modulation of halo abundance with environmental density. The amplitude of the detected sign…
The Data Release 4 of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) shows an agreement with an Harrison-Zel'dovich primordial spectrum ($n_s=1.009 \pm 0.015$), introducing a tension with a significance of $99.3\%$ CL with the results from the Planck satellite. The discrepancy on the value of the scalar spectral index is neither alleviated with the addition of large scale structure information nor with the low multipole polarization data. We discuss possible avenues to alleviate the tension relying on either neglecting polarization measurements from ACT or in extending different sectors of the theory.
We consider the Stokes parameters' frequency spectral distortions arising due to Compton scattering of the anisotropic cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, the Sunyaev-Zel' dovich effect (SZ), towards clusters of galaxies. We single out a very special type of such distortions and find simple analytical formulas for them. We show that this kind of distortion has a very distinctive spectral shape and can be separated from other kinds of contaminants. We demonstrate that this effect gives us an opportunity for an independent estimation of the low-multipole angular CMB anisotropies, such a…
The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect is a powerful probe of the evolution of structures in the universe, and is thus highly sensitive to cosmological parameters $σ_8$ and $Ω_m$, though its power is hampered by the current uncertainties on the cluster mass calibration. In this analysis we revisit constraints on these cosmological parameters as well as the hydrostatic mass bias, by performing (i) a robust estimation of the tSZ power-spectrum, (ii) a complete modeling and analysis of the tSZ bispectrum, and (iii) a combined analysis of galaxy clusters number count, tSZ power spectrum, and tSZ bispe…
Large-angle fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background temperature induced by the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect and Compton-y distortions from the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) effect are both due to line-of-sight density perturbations. Here we calculate the cross-correlation between these two signals. Measurement of this cross-correlation can be used to test the redshift distribution of the tSZ distortion, which has implications for the redshift at which astrophysical processes in clusters begin to operate. We also evaluate the detectability of a yT cross-correlation from exotic early-…
Cross-correlation analysis of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect and weak gravitational lensing (WL) provides a powerful probe of cosmology and astrophysics of the intra-cluster medium. We present the measurement of the cross-correlation of tSZ and WL from Planck and Subaru Hyper-Suprime Cam. The combination enables us to study cluster astrophysics at high redshift. We use the tSZ-WL cross-correlation and the tSZ auto-power spectrum measurements to place a tight constraint on the hydrostatic mass bias, which is a measure of the degree of non-thermal pressure support in galaxy clusters…
The thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect is a powerful probe of cosmology. The statistical errors in the tSZ power spectrum measurements are dominated by the presence of massive clusters in a survey volume that are easy to identify on individual cluster basis. First, we study the impact of super sample covariance (SSC) on the tSZ power spectrum measurements, and find that the sample variance is dominated by the connected non-Gaussian (cNG) covariance arising mainly from Poisson number fluctuations of massive clusters in the survey volume. Second, we find that removing such individually-dete…
The latest Planck results on the power spectrum of the Compton-$y$ parameter are the most accurate probe of the thermal Sunyaev Zeldovich (tSZ) effect caused by resolved and un-resolved clusters of galaxies. On large angular scales, the power spectrum amplitude is mostly due to the statistical distribution of clusters in the sky and therefore is an indirect probe of the clustering of matter, $σ_8$, as well as the angular diameter distance that depends on other cosmological parameters such as the Hubble parameter, $h$, and the matter density $Ω_m$. Here I discuss the constraining power of the t…
Several galaxy clusters host X-ray cavities, often filled with relativistic electrons emitting in the radio band. In the cluster MS 0735.6+7421 the cavities have been detected through the Sunyaev Zel'dovich (SZ) effect, but it has not been possible to determine if this effect is thermal (produced by a very high temperature gas filling the cavity) or non-thermal (produced by the relativistic electrons that produce the diffuse radio emission detected in the cavity). In this paper we discuss the role of the density of the high temperature gas inside the cavities in determining whether the dominan…