History

Archive of discussed papers¶

Archive of discussed papers

6.12.2013 First Measurement of the Cross-Correlation of CMB Lensing and Galaxy Lensing¶

Nick Hand, Alexie Leauthaud, Sudeep Das, Blake D. Sherwin, Graeme E. Addison, J. Richard Bond, Erminia Calabrese, Aldée Charbonnier, Mark J. Devlin, Joanna Dunkley, Thomas Erben, Amir Hajian, Mark Halpern, Joachim Harnois-Déraps, Catherine Heymans, Hendrik Hildebrandt, Adam D. Hincks, Jean-Paul Kneib, Arthur Kosowsky, Martin Makler, Lance Miller, Kavilan Moodley, Bruno Moraes, Michael D. Niemack, Lyman A. Page, Bruce Partridge, Neelima Sehgal, Huanyuan Shan, Jonathan L. Sievers, David N. Spergel, Suzanne T. Staggs, Eric R. Switzer, James E. Taylor, Ludovic Van Waerbeke, Edward J. Wollack
(Submitted on 25 Nov 2013)
We measure the cross-correlation of cosmic microwave background lensing convergence maps derived from Atacama Cosmology Telescope data with galaxy lensing convergence maps as measured by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Stripe 82 Survey. The CMB-galaxy lensing cross power spectrum is measured for the first time with a significance of 3.2{\sigma}, which corresponds to a 16% constraint on the amplitude of density fluctuations at redshifts ~ 0.9. With upcoming improved lensing data, this novel type of measurement will become a powerful cosmological probe, providing a precise measurement of the mass distribution at intermediate redshifts and serving as a calibrator for systematic biases in weak lensing measurements.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.6200

29.11.2013 SPT Mass calibration (Sebastian)¶

19.07.13 Start of summer hiatus¶

12.07.13 Cluster Cosmology at a Crossroads: Neutrino Masses¶

Eduardo Rozo, Eli S. Rykoff, James G. Bartlett, August E. Evrard
(Submitted on 20 Feb 2013)
Galaxy clusters --- in combination with CMB and BAO data --- can provide precise constraints on the sum of neutrino masses. However, these constraints depend on the calibration of the mass--observable relation. For instance, the mass calibration employed in Planck Collaboration (2011a,b) rules out the minimal 6-parameter \Lambda CDM model at 3.7\sigma, and implies a sum of neutrino masses \sum m_\nu = 0.39 \pm 0.10. By contrast, the mass calibration favored by Rozo et al. (2012b) from a self-consistent analysis of X-ray, SZ, and optical scaling relations is consistent with a minimal flat \Lambda CDM model with no massive neutrinos (1.7\sigma), and is a better fit to additional data (e.g. H0). We discuss these results in light of the recent SPT and ACT analysis, noting that the Rozo et al. (2012b) model suggests the current mild "tension" (<2\sigma) between CMB and BAO+$H_0$ data will decrease as the uncertainties in these measurements decrease.

http://arXiv.org/abs/1302.5086

05.07.13 Cancelled due to conferences¶

28.06.13 SPT paper discussion¶

Discussion of the to-be-submitted Bayliss et al. paper.

21.06.13 Discussion on observer bias and blinding analyses¶

On the measurement of cosmological parameters
Rupert A. C. Croft, Matthew Dailey (CMU)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3108

BLIND ANALYSIS IN NUCLEAR AND PARTICLE PHYSICS
Joshua R. Klein, Aaron Roodman
Stanford Linear Accelerator C
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.nucl.55.090704.151521

Condensed version:

Blind Analysis in Particle Physics
Aaron Roodman
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0312102

An early example of blinding in astrophysics is the "Weighing the
Giants" project and their design is described in Section 1.3:

Weighing the Giants I: Weak Lensing Masses for 51 Massive Galaxy Clusters - Project Overview, Data Analysis Methods, and Cluster Images
Anja von der Linden
http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.0597

14.06.13: Canceled due to conferences¶

07.06.13: Bayes Forum Talk¶

Alex Szalay (Johns Hopkins University)

Photometric Redshifts Using Random Forests

Abstract: The talk will describe how Breiman's Random Forest technique provides a simple and elegant approach to photometric redshifts. We show through a simple toy model how the estimator's uncertainty can be quantified, and how the uncertainty scales with sample size, forest size and sampling rate. We then show how the RF is really a computationally convenient form of a kernel density estimator, and as such maps unto Bayesian techniques extremely naturally.

31.05.13: Canceled¶

24.05.13 Classic Paper Edition: A Universal Density Profile from Hierarchical Clustering¶

Julio F. Navarro (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona), Carlos S. Frenk (University of Durham), Simon D.M. White (MPI fur Astrophysik)
(Submitted on 13 Nov 1996 (v1), last revised 21 Oct 1997 (this version, v4))
We use high-resolution N-body simulations to study the equilibrium density profiles of dark matter halos in hierarchically clustering universes. We find that all such profiles have the same shape, independent of halo mass, of initial density fluctuation spectrum, and of the values of the cosmological parameters. Spherically averaged equilibrium profiles are well fit over two decades in radius by a simple formula originally proposed to describe the structure of galaxy clusters in a cold dark matter universe. In any particular cosmology the two scale parameters of the fit, the halo mass and its characteristic density, are strongly correlated. Low-mass halos are significantly denser than more massive systems, a correlation which reflects the higher collapse redshift of small halos. The characteristic density of an equilibrium halo is proportional to the density of the universe at the time it was assembled. A suitable definition of this assembly time allows the same proportionality constant to be used for all the cosmologies that we have tested. We compare our results to previous work on halo density profiles and show that there is good agreement. We also provide a step-by-step analytic procedure, based on the Press-Schechter formalism, which allows accurate equilibrium profiles to be calculated as a function of mass in any hierarchical model.

http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph

17.05.13: Merged with Cluster group meeting¶

10.05.13: Cancelled¶

Optional replacement:

Dark Matter Halos from First Principles
Liliya Williams

http://hosting.epresence.tv/CITA/1/watch/500.aspx

03.05.13: Violent Relaxation in Hierarchical Clustering¶

Simon D.M. White
(Submitted on 5 Feb 1996)
The term ``violent relaxation'' was coined by Donald Lynden-Bell as a memorable oxymoron describing how a stellar dynamical system relaxes from a chaotic initial state to a quasi-equilibrium. His analysis showed that this process is rapid, even for systems with many stars, and that it leads to equilibria which may plausibly be related to bounded isothermal spheres. I review how numerical simulations have improved our understanding of violent relaxation over the last thirty years. It is clear that the process leads to equilibria which depend strongly on the initial state, but which nevertheless have certain common features. A particularly interesting case concerns objects formed in an expanding universe through dissipationless hierarchical clustering from gaussian initial conditions; these may correspond to galaxy clusters or to the dark halos of galaxies. While such objects display a wide range of shapes and spins, the distributions of these properties depend only weakly on the cosmological context and on the initial spectrum of density fluctuations. Halo density profiles appear to have a universal form with a singular central structure and a characteristic density which depends only on formation epoch. Low mass halos typically have earlier formation times and thus higher characteristic densities than high mass halos.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9602021

26.04.13: Measuring Gravitational Redshifts in Galaxy Clusters¶

Nick Kaiser
(Submitted on 15 Mar 2013)
Wojtak {\it et al} have stacked 7,800 clusters from the SDSS survey in redshift space. They find a small net blue-shift for the cluster galaxies relative to the brightest cluster galaxies, which agrees quite well with the gravitational redshift from GR. Zhao {\it et al.} have pointed out that, in addition to the gravitational redshift, one would expect to see transverse Doppler (TD) redshifts, and that these two effects are generally of the same order. Here we show that there are other corrections that are also of the same order of magnitude. The fact that we observe galaxies on our past light cone results in a bias such that more of the galaxies observed are moving away from us in the frame of the cluster than are moving towards us. This causes the observed average redshift to be $\langle \delta z \rangle = -\langle \Phi \rangle + \langle \beta^2 \rangle / 2 + \langle \beta_x^2 \rangle$, with $\beta_x$ is the line of sight velocity. That is if we average over galaxies with equal weight. If the galaxies in each cluster are weighted by their fluence, or equivalently if we do not resolve the moving sources, and make an average of the mean redshift giving equal weight per photon, the observed redshift is then opposite to the usual transverse Doppler effect. In the WHH experiment, the weighting is a step-function because of the flux-limit for inclusion in the spectroscopic sample and the result is different again, and depends on the details of the luminosity function and the SEDs of the galaxies. Including these effects substantially modifies the blue-shift profile. We identify some potential biases in the dynamical analysis of stacked clusters. We show that in-fall and out-flow have very small effect over the relevant range of impact parameters.

http://arXiv.org/abs/1303.3663

19.04.13: Reconciling extremely different concentration-mass relations¶

M. Meneghetti, E. Rasia
(Submitted on 25 Mar 2013)
The concentration-mass relations proposed by Prada et al. (2012) and by Duffy et al. (2008) on the scales of galaxy clusters show some of the largest discrepancies among all the works present in literature. This is surprising because they are both derived from the analysis of dark-matter halos forming in LCDM simulations with similar set-ups. With the help of analytic models and numerical simulations we investigate the origin of this discrepancy focusing on the procedures used to derive the concentrations (circular velocity ratios versus density profile fitting) and on the selection criteria used to bin the halos (binning in maximum circular velocity versus binning in mass). We find that both steps of the analysis have a large impact on the resulting c-M relation. In particular, we show that the two c-M relations can be entirely reconciled, if we account for these methodological differences. Our analysis demonstrates that the concentration estimates are sensitive to the largely different radial scales probed by a particular measurement method. This implies that concentrations derived with different techniques (both in observations and in simulations) must be compared over the same radial range.

http://arXiv.org/abs/1303.6158

12.04.13: Visitor: Jim Bartlett and open discussion about the Plack cluster and cosmology resutls¶

Papers covered:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.5080 XX. Cosmology from Sunyaev-Zeldovich cluster counts
http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.5089 XXIX. The Planck catalogue of Sunyaev-Zeldovich sources

05.04.13: Planck streamming¶

29.03.13: Easter holidays¶

22.03.13 Classic Paper Edition: Formation of Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies by Self-Similar Gravitational Condensation¶

Press, William H.; Schechter, Paul

- new feature: occasionally discussing historically important papers
- we also briefly discussed the new Planck results

15.03.13 Special: HEART OF DARKNESS: UNRAVELING THE MYSTERIES OF THE INVISIBLE UNIVERSE¶

Fri. 15 March 2013, 13:30 — Fri. 15 March 2013, 15:00
Jeremiah P. Ostriker (Princeton University) (New seminar room (basement), MPE, Giessenbachstrasse, Garching)
The new book "Heart of Darkness" describes the incredible saga of humankind's quest to unravel the deepest secrets of the universe. Over the past thirty years, scientists have learned that two little-understood components--dark matter and dark energy--comprise most of the known cosmos, explain the growth of all cosmic structure, and hold the key to the universe's fate. The story of how evidence for the so-called "Lambda-Cold Dark Matter" model of cosmology has been gathered by generations of scientists throughout the world is told here by one of the pioneers of the field, Jeremiah Ostriker, and his coauthor Simon Mitton.
The story is far from complete, however, as scientists confront the mysteries of the ultimate causes of cosmic structure formation and the real nature and origin of dark matter and dark energy

08.03.13 Special - visitor talk and discussion¶

Speaker: Fabrice Brimioulle
Topic: Galaxy-Galaxy lensing

01.03.13 The X-ray/SZ view of the virial region. I. and II.¶

The X-ray/SZ view of the virial region. I. Thermodynamic properties
Dominique Eckert, Silvano Molendi, Franco Vazza, Stefano Ettori, Stéphane Paltani
(Submitted on 3 Jan 2013)
We measure the thermodynamic properties of cluster outer regions to provide constraints on the processes that rule the formation of large scale structures. We derived the thermodynamic properties of the intracluster gas (temperature, entropy) by combining the SZ thermal pressure from Planck and the X-ray gas density from ROSAT. This method allowed us to reconstruct for the first time temperature and entropy profiles out to the virial radius and beyond in a large sample of objects. At variance with several recent Suzaku studies, we find that the entropy rises steadily with radius, albeit at at a somewhat lower rate than predicted by self-similar expectations. We note significant differences between relaxed, cool-core systems and unrelaxed clusters in the outer regions. Relaxed systems appear to follow the self-similar expectations more closely than perturbed objects. Our results indicate that the well-known entropy excess observed in cluster cores extends well beyond the central regions. When correcting for the gas depletion, the observed entropy profiles agree with the prediction from gravitational collapse only, especially for cool-core clusters.

http://arXiv.org/abs/1301.0617

The X-ray/SZ view of the virial region. II. Gas mass fraction
Dominique Eckert, Stefano Ettori, Silvano Molendi, Franco Vazza, Stéphane Paltani
(Submitted on 3 Jan 2013)
Several recent studies used the hot gas fraction of galaxy clusters as a standard ruler to constrain dark energy, which provides competitive results compared to other techniques. This method, however, relies on the assumption that the baryon fraction in clusters agrees with the cosmic value Omega_b/Omega_m, and does not differ from one system to another. We test this hypothesis by measuring the gas mass fraction over the entire cluster volume in a sample of local clusters. Combining the SZ thermal pressure from Planck and the X-ray gas density from ROSAT, we measured for the first time the average gas fraction (fgas) out to the virial radius and beyond in a large sample of clusters. We also obtained azimuthally-averaged measurements of the gas fraction for 18 individual systems, which we used to compute the scatter of fgas around the mean value at different radii and its dependence on the cluster's temperature. The gas mass fraction increases with radius and reaches the cosmic baryon fraction close to R200. At R200, we measure fgas,200=0.176+/-0.009. We find significant differences between the baryon fraction of relaxed, cool-core (CC) systems and unrelaxed, non-cool core (NCC) clusters in the outer regions. In average, the gas fraction in NCC clusters slightly exceeds the cosmic baryon fraction, while in CC systems the gas fraction converges to the expected value when accounting for the stellar content, without any evidence for variations from one system to another. We find that fgas estimates in NCC systems slightly disagree with the cosmic value approaching R200. This result could be explained either by a violation of the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium or by an inhomogeneous distribution of the gas mass. Conversely, cool-core clusters are found to provide reliable constraints on fgas at overdensities >200, which makes them suitable for cosmological studies.

http://arXiv.org/abs/1301.0624

22.02.13 The cosmological evolution of cool cores in a sample of 80 massive galaxy clusters discovered by the South Pole Telescope¶

by Mike McDonald et.

- SPT paper pre-submission discussion

15.02.13 Session merged with the weekly group seminar¶

- discussion of Saro et al. 2013 in prep.

08.02.13 The relation between velocity dispersion and mass in simulated clusters of galaxies: dependence on the tracer and the baryonic physics¶

Emiliano Munari, Andrea Biviano, Stefano Borgani, Giuseppe Murante, Dunja Fabjan
(Submitted on 8 Jan 2013)
[Abridged] We present an analysis of the relation between the masses of cluster- and group-sized halos, extracted from $\Lambda$CDM cosmological N-body and hydrodynamic simulations, and their velocity dispersions, at different redshifts from $z=2$ to $z=0$. The main aim of this analysis is to understand how the implementation of baryonic physics in simulations affects such relation, i.e. to what extent the use of the velocity dispersion as a proxy for cluster mass determination is hampered by the imperfect knowledge of the baryonic physics. In our analysis we use several sets of simulations with different physics implemented. Velocity dispersions are determined using three different tracers, DM particles, subhalos, and galaxies.
We confirm that DM particles trace a relation that is fully consistent with the theoretical expectations based on the virial theorem and with previous results presented in the literature. On the other hand, subhalos and galaxies trace steeper relations, and with larger values of the normalization. Such relations imply that galaxies and subhalos have a $\sim10$ per cent velocity bias relative to the DM particles, which can be either positive or negative, depending on halo mass, redshift and physics implemented in the simulation.
We explain these differences as due to dynamical processes, namely dynamical friction and tidal disruption, acting on substructures and galaxies, but not on DM particles. These processes appear to be more or less effective, depending on the halo masses and the importance of baryon cooling, and may create a non-trivial dependence of the velocity bias and the $\soneD$--$\Mtwo$ relation on the tracer, the halo mass and its redshift.
These results are relevant in view of the application of velocity dispersion as a proxy for cluster masses in ongoing and future large redshift surveys.

http://arXiv.org/abs/1301.1682

30.01.13 Special - visitor talk and discussion¶

Speaker: Nelson Padilla, Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Chile
Topic: Galaxy - Halo and AGN torus - disk alignments

25.01.13 Prospects for measuring the relative velocities of galaxy clusters in photometric surveys using the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect¶

Ryan Keisler, Fabian Schmidt
(Submitted on 4 Nov 2012)
We consider the prospects for measuring the pairwise kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) signal from galaxy clusters discovered in large photometric surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We project that the DES cluster sample will, in conjunction with existing mm-wave data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT), yield a detection of the pairwise kSZ signal at the 8-13 sigma level, with sensitivity peaking for clusters separated by ~100 Mpc distances. A next-generation version of SPT would allow for a 18-30 sigma detection and would be limited by variance from the kSZ signal itself and residual thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) signal. Throughout our analysis we assume photometric redshift errors, which wash out the signal for clusters separated by <~50 Mpc; a spectroscopic survey of the DES sample would recover this signal and allow for a 26-43 sigma detection, and would again be limited by kSZ/tSZ variance. Assuming a standard model of structure formation, these high-precision measurements of the pairwise kSZ signal will yield detailed information on the gas content of the galaxy clusters. Alternatively, if the gas can be sufficiently characterized by other means (e.g. using tSZ, X-ray, or weak lensing), then the relative velocities of the galaxy clusters can be isolated, thereby providing a precision measurement of gravity on 100 Mpc scales. We briefly consider the utility of these measurements for constraining theories of modified gravity.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.0668

18.01.13 The Formation of Massive Cluster Galaxies¶

Conor L. Mancone, Anthony H. Gonzalez, Mark Brodwin, Spencer A. Stanford, Peter R. M. Eisenhardt, Daniel Stern, Christine Jones
(Submitted on 8 Jul 2010)
We present composite 3.6 and 4.5 micron luminosity functions for cluster galaxies measured from the Spitzer Deep, Wide-Field Survey (SDWFS) for 0.3<z<2. We compare the evolution of m* for these luminosity functions to models for passively evolving stellar populations to constrain the primary epoch of star formation in massive cluster galaxies. At low redshifts (z < 1.3) our results agree well with models with no mass assembly and passively evolving stellar populations with a luminosity-weighted mean formation redshift zf=2.4 assuming a Kroupa initial mass function (IMF). We conduct a thorough investigation of systematic biases that might influence our results, and estimate systematic uncertainites of Delta zf=(+0.16-0.18) (model normalization), Delta zf=(+0.40-0.05) (alpha), and Delta zf=(+0.30-0.45) (choice of stellar population model). For a Salpeter type IMF, the typical formation epoch is thus strongly constrained to be z ~2-3. Higher formation redshifts can only be made consistent with the data if one permits an evolving IMF that is bottom-light at high redshift, as suggested by van Dokkum et al 2008. At high redshift (z > 1.3) we also witness a statistically significant (>5sigma) disagreement between the measured luminosity function and the continuation of the passive evolution model from lower redshifts. After considering potential systematic biases that might influence our highest redshift data points, we interpret the observed deviation as potential evidence for ongoing mass assembly at this epoch.

http://arXiv.org/abs/1007.1454v1

11.01.13: The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Selected Galaxy Clusters at 148 GHz from Three Seasons of Data¶

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Selected Galaxy Clusters at 148 GHz from Three Seasons of Data¶

Matthew Hasselfield, Matt Hilton, Tobias A. Marriage, Graeme E. Addison, L. Felipe Barrientos, Nick Battaglia, Elia S. Battistelli, J. Richard Bond, Devin Crichton, Sudeep Das, Mark J. Devlin, Simon R. Dicker, Joanna Dunkley, Rolando Dunner, Joseph W. Fowler, Megan B. Gralla, Amir Hajian, Mark Halpern, Adam D. Hincks, Renée Hlozek, John P. Hughes, Leopoldo Infante, Kent D. Irwin, Arthur Kosowsky, Danica Marsden, Felipe Menanteau, Kavilan Moodley, Michael D. Niemack, Michael R. Nolta, Lyman A. Page, Bruce Partridge, Erik D. Reese, Benjamin L. Schmitt, Neelima Sehgal, Blake D. Sherwin, Jon Sievers, Cristóbal Sifón, David N. Spergel, Suzanne T. Staggs, Daniel S. Swetz, Eric R. Switzer, Robert Thornton, Hy Trac, Edward J. Wollack
(Submitted on 4 Jan 2013)
[Abridged] We present a catalog of 68 galaxy clusters, of which 19 are new discoveries, detected via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZ) at 148 GHz in the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) survey of 504 square degrees on the celestial equator. A subsample of 48 clusters within the 270 square degree region overlapping SDSS Stripe 82 is estimated to be 90% complete for M_500c > 4.5e14 Msun and 0.15 < z < 0.8. While matched filters are used to detect the clusters, the sample is studied further through a "Profile Based Amplitude Analysis" using a single filter at a fixed \theta_500 = 5.9' angular scale. This new approach takes advantage of the "Universal Pressure Profile" (UPP) to break the degeneracy between the cluster extent (R_500) and the integrated Compton parameter (Y_500). The UPP scalings are found to be nearly identical to an adiabatic model, while a model incorporating non-thermal pressure better matches dynamical mass measurements and masses from the South Pole Telescope. A complete, high signal to noise ratio subsample of 15 ACT clusters is used to obtain cosmological constraints. We first confirm that constraints from SZ data are limited by uncertainty in the scaling relation parameters rather than sample size or measurement uncertainty. We next add in seven clusters from the ACT Southern survey, including their dynamical mass measurements based on galaxy velocity dispersions. In combination with WMAP7 these data simultaneously constrain the scaling relation and cosmological parameters, yielding \sigma_8 = 0.829 \pm 0.024 and \Omega_m = 0.292 \pm 0.025. The results include marginalization over a 15% bias in dynamical mass relative to the true halo mass. In an extension to LCDM that incorporates non-zero neutrino mass density, we combine our data with WMAP7+BAO+Hubble constant measurements to constrain \Sigma m_\nu < 0.29 eV (95% C. L.).

http://arXiv.org/abs/1301.0816

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Cosmological parameters from three seasons of data¶

Jonathan L. Sievers, Renée A. Hlozek, Michael R. Nolta, Viviana Acquaviva, Graeme E. Addison, Peter A. R. Ade, Paula Aguirre, Mandana Amiri, John William Appel, L. Felipe Barrientos, Elia S. Battistelli, Nick Battaglia, J. Richard Bond, Ben Brown, Bryce Burger, Erminia Calabrese, Jay Chervenak, Devin Crichton, Sudeep Das, Mark J. Devlin, Simon R. Dicker, W. Bertrand Doriese, Joanna Dunkley, Rolando Dünner, Thomas Essinger-Hileman, David Faber, Ryan P. Fisher, Joseph W. Fowler, Patricio Gallardo, Michael S. Gordon, Megan B. Gralla, Amir Hajian, Mark Halpern, Matthew Hasselfield, Carlos Hernández-Monteagudo, J. Colin Hill, Gene C. Hilton, Matt Hilton, Adam D. Hincks, Dave Holtz, Kevin M. Huffenberger, David H. Hughes, John P. Hughes, Leopoldo Infante, Kent D. Irwin, David R. Jacobson, et al. (47 additional authors not shown)
(Submitted on 4 Jan 2013)
We present constraints on cosmological and astrophysical parameters from high-resolution microwave background maps at 148 GHz and 218 GHz made by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in three seasons of observations from 2008 to 2010. A model of primary cosmological and secondary foreground parameters is fit to the map power spectra and lensing deflection power spectrum, including contributions from both the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect, Poisson and correlated anisotropy from unresolved infrared sources, radio sources, and the correlation between the thermal SZ effect and infrared sources. The power ell^2 C_ell/2pi of the thermal SZ power spectrum at 148 GHz is measured to be 3.4 + /-1.4 muK^2 at ell=3000, while the corresponding amplitude of the kinematic SZ power spectrum has a 95 percent confidence level upper limit of 8.6 muK^2. Combining ACT power spectra with the WMAP 7-year temperature and polarization power spectra, we find excellent consistency with the LCDM model. We constrain the number of effective relativistic degrees of freedom in the early universe to be Neff=2.78 + / - 0.55, in agreement with the canonical value of Neff=3.046 for three massless neutrinos. We constrain the sum of the neutrino masses to be Sigma m_nu < 0.39 eV at 95% confidence when combining ACT and WMAP 7-year data with BAO and Hubble constant measurements. We constrain the amount of primordial helium to be Yp = 0.226 + / - 0.032, and measure no variation in the fine structure constant alpha since recombination, with alpha/alpha_0 = 1.004+/- 0.005. We also find no evidence for any running of the scalar spectral index, dns/dln k = - 0.003 +/- 0.013.

http://arXiv.org/abs/1301.0824

21.12.12: Clusters of galaxies and variation of the fine structure constant & Telescopes don't make catalogues!¶

Clusters of galaxies and variation of the fine structure constant¶

S. Galli
(Submitted on 5 Dec 2012)
We propose a new method to probe for variations in the fine structure constant alpha using clusters of galaxies, opening up a window on a new redshift range for such constraints. Hot clusters shine in the X-ray mainly due to bremsstrahlung, while they leave an imprint on the CMB frequency spectrum through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. These two physical processes can be characterized by the integrated Comptonization parameter Y_SZ DA^2 and its X-ray counterpart, the Y_X parameter. The ratio of these two quantities is expected to be constant from numerical simulations and current observations. We show that this fact can be exploited to constrain alpha, as the ratio of the two parameters depends on the fine structure constant as alpha^{3.5}. We determine current constraints from a combination of Planck SZ and XMM-Newton data, testing different models of variation of alpha. When fitting for a constant value of alpha, we find that current constraints are at the 1% level, comparable with current CMB constraints. We discuss strategies for further improving these constraints by almost an order of magnitude.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.1075

Telescopes don't make catalogues!¶

David W. Hogg and Dustin Lang
(Submitted on 4 Aug 2010)

Astronomical instruments make intensity measurements; any precise astronomical experiment ought to involve modeling those measurements. People make catalogues, but because a catalogue requires hard decisions about calibration and detection, no catalogue can contain all of the information in the raw pixels relevant to most scientific investigations. Here we advocate making catalogue-like data outputs that permit investigators to test hypotheses with almost the power of the original image pixels. The key is to provide users with approximations to likelihood tests against the raw image pixels. We advocate three options, in order of increasing difficulty: The first is to define catalogue entries and associated uncertainties such that the catalogue contains the parameters of an approximate description of the image-level likelihood function. The second is to produce a K-catalogue sampling in "catalogue space" that samples a posterior probability distribution of catalogues given the data. The third is to expose a web service or equivalent that can re-compute on demand the full image-level likelihood for any user-supplied catalogue.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.0738

14.12.12: Bias from gas inhomogeneities in the pressure profiles as measured from X-ray and SZ observations¶

S. Khedekar, E. Churazov, A. Kravtsov, I. Zhuravleva, E. T. Lau, D. Nagai, R. Sunyaev
(Submitted on 14 Nov 2012)
X-ray observations of galaxy clusters provide emission measure weighted spectra, arising from a range of density and temperature fluctuations in the intra-cluster medium (ICM). This is fitted to a single temperature plasma emission model to provide an estimate of the gas density and temperature, which are sensitive to the gas inhomogeneities. Therefore, X-ray observations yield a potentially biased estimate of the thermal gas pressure, P_X. At the same time Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) observations directly measure the integrated gas pressure, P_SZ. If the X-ray pressure profiles are strongly biased with respect to to the SZ, then one has the possibility to probe the gas inhomogeneities, even at scales unresolved by the current generation of telescopes. At the same time, a weak bias has implications for the use of mass proxies like Y_SZ and Y_X as cosmological probes. In this paper we investigate the dependence of the bias, P_X(r)/P_SZ(r)-1, on the characteristics of fluctuations in the ICM taking into account the correlation between temperature and density fluctuations. We made a simple prediction of the irreducible bias in idealised X-ray vs SZ observations using multi-temperature plasma emission model. We also provide a simple fitting form to estimate the bias given the distribution of fluctuations. Analysing a sample of 16 simulated clusters extracted from hydrodynamical simulations, we find that the median value of bias is within +/-3% within R_500, it decreases to - 5% at R_500 < r < 1.5R_500 and then rises back to ~0% at > 2R_500. The scatter of b_P(r) between individual relaxed clusters is small -- at the level of <0.03 within R_500, but turns significantly larger (0.25) and highly skewed at r > 1.5 R_500. Unrelaxed clusters display larger scatter (both from radius to radius and from cluster to cluster). Nevertheless, the bias remains within +/-20% within 0.8R_500 for all clusters.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.3358

Votes: 2

05.12.12: Order statistics applied to the most massive and most distant galaxy clusters¶

Jean-Claude Waizmann, Stefano Ettori, Matthias Bartelmann
(Submitted on 22 Oct 2012)
In this work we present for the first time an analytic framework for calculating the individual and joint distributions of the n-th most massive or n-th highest redshift galaxy cluster for a given survey characteristic allowing to formulate LCDM exclusion criteria. We show that the cumulative distribution functions steepen with increasing order, giving them a higher constraining power with respect to the extreme value statistics. Additionally, we find that the order statistics in mass (being dominated by clusters at lower redshifts) is sensitive to the matter density and the normalisation of the matter fluctuations, whereas the order statistics in redshift is particularly sensitive to the geometric evolution of the Universe. For a fixed cosmology, both order statistics are efficient probes of the functional shape of the mass function at the high mass end. To allow a quick assessment of both order statistics, we provide fits as a function of the survey area that allow percentile estimation with an accuracy better than two per cent. Furthermore, we discuss the joint distributions in the two-dimensional case for different combinations of order.
Having introduced the theory, we apply the order statistical analysis to the SPT massive cluster sample and MCXC catalogue and find that the ten most massive clusters in the sample are consistent with LCDM and the Tinker mass function. In turn, by assuming the LCDM reference cosmology, order statistics can also be utilised for consistency checks of the completeness of the observed sample and of the modelling of the survey selection function. [abridged]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.6021

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