Constraining baryonic feedback and cosmology with weak-lensing, X-ray, and kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich observations [CEA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2110.02228


Modern weak-lensing observations are becoming increasingly sensitive to baryonic feedback processes which are still poorly understood. So far, this new challenge has been faced either by imposing scale-cuts in the data or by modelling baryonic effects with simple, one-parameter models. In this paper, we rely on a more general, seven-parameter prescription of baryonic feedback effects, which is primarily motivated by observations and has been shown to agree with a plethora of hydrodynamical simulations. By combining weak-lensing data from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS-1000) with observations of gas around galaxy groups and clusters, we are able to constrain our baryonic model parameters and learn more about feedback and cosmology. In particular, we use galaxy cluster gas (and stellar) fractions from a combination of X-ray data as well as stacked gas profiles measured by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) via the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) effect to provide evidence for baryonic feedback that is stronger than predicted by most hydrodynamical simulations. In terms of the baryonic suppression of the matter power spectrum, we report a beyond-percent effect at wave-modes above $k\sim 0.1-0.4$ h/Mpc and a maximum suppression of 15-35 percent at $k>5$ h/Mpc (68 percent CL). Regarding the cosmological clustering strength, parametrised by the combined parameter $\Sigma_8=\sigma_8(\Omega_m/0.3)^{0.58}$, we find the known tension with the Planck satellite data to be reduced from 3.8 to 3.2 $\sigma$ once baryonic effects are fully included in the analysis pipeline. The tension is further decreased to 2.8 $\sigma$ when the weak-lensing data is combined with observations from X-ray and the kSZ effect. We conclude that, while baryonic feedback effects become more important in modern weak-lensing surveys, they can be excluded as the primary culprit for the observed $\Sigma_8$-tension.

Read this paper on arXiv…

A. Schneider, S. Giri, S. Amodeo, et. al.
Thu, 7 Oct 21
37/51

Comments: 13 pages, 9 figures, comments welcome