Cosmology with the pairwise kinematic SZ effect: Calibration and validation using hydrodynamical simulations [CEA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1712.05714


We study the potential of the kinematic SZ effect as a probe for cosmology, focusing on the pairwise method. The main challenge is disentangling the cosmologically interesting mean pairwise velocity from the cluster optical depth and the associated uncertainties on the baryonic physics in clusters. Furthermore, the pairwise kSZ signal might be affected by internal cluster motions or correlations between velocity and optical depth. We investigate these effects using the Magneticum cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, one of the largest simulations of this kind performed to date. We produce tSZ and kSZ maps with an area of $\simeq 1600~\mathrm{deg}^2$, and the corresponding cluster catalogues with $M_{500c} \gtrsim 3 \times 10^{13}~h^{-1}M_\odot$ and $z \lesssim 2$. From these data sets we calibrate a scaling relation between the average Compton-$y$ parameter and optical depth. We show that this relation can be used to recover an accurate estimate of the mean pairwise velocity from the kSZ effect, and that this effect can be used as an important probe of cosmology. We demonstrate that the residual systematic effects seen in our analysis are well below the remaining uncertainties on the sub-grid feedback models implemented in hydrodynamical simulations.

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B. Soergel, A. Saro, T. Giannantonio, et. al.
Mon, 18 Dec 17
46/49

Comments: 15 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables; submitted to MNRAS