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arXiv · 1809.09666

Can we neglect relativistic temperature corrections in the Planck thermal SZ analysis?

Mathieu Remazeilles·Boris Bolliet·Aditya Rotti·Jens Chluba
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Abstract

Measurements of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect have long been recognized as a powerful cosmological probe. Here we assess the importance of relativistic temperature corrections to the tSZ signal on the power spectrum analysis of the Planck Compton-$y$ map, developing a novel formalism to account for the associated effects. The amplitude of the tSZ power spectrum is found to be sensitive to the effective electron temperature, $\bar{T}_e$, of the cluster sample. Omitting the corresponding modifications leads to an underestimation of the $yy$-power spectrum amplitude. Relativistic corrections thus add to the error budget of tSZ power spectrum observables such as $σ_8$. This could help alleviate the tension between various cosmological probes, with the correction scaling as $Δσ_8/σ_8 \simeq 0.019\,[k\bar{T}_e\,/\,5\,{\rm keV}]$ for Planck. At the current level of precision, this implies a systematic shift by $\simeq 1σ$, which can also be interpreted as an overestimation of the hydrostatic mass bias by $Δb \simeq 0.046\,(1-b)\,[k\bar{T}_e\,/\,5\,{\rm keV}]$, bringing it into better agreement with hydrodynamical simulations. It is thus time to consider relativistic temperature corrections in the processing of current and future tSZ data.

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Mathieu Remazeilles, Boris Bolliet, Aditya Rotti, Jens Chluba. 2018-12-18. Can we neglect relativistic temperature corrections in the Planck thermal SZ analysis?. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras%2Fsty3352

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