An ALMA+ACA measurement of the shock in the Bullet Cluster

Abstract

The thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect presents a relatively new tool for characterizing galaxy cluster merger shocks, traditionally studied through X-ray observations. Widely regarded as the "textbook example" of a cluster merger bow shock, the western shock front in the Bullet Cluster (1E0657-56) represents the ideal test case for such an SZ study. We aim to reconstruct a parametric model for the shock SZ signal by directly and jointly fitting deep, high-resolution interferometric data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and Atacama Compact Array (ACA) in Fourier space. The ALMA+ACA data are primarily sensitive to the electron pressure difference across the shock front. To estimate the shock Mach number $M$, this difference can be combined with the value for the upstream electron pressure derived from an independent Chandra X-ray analysis. In the case of instantaneous electron-ion temperature equilibration, we find $M=2.08^{+0.12}_{-0.12}$, in $\approx 2.4\sigma$ tension with the independent constraint from Chandra, $M_X=2.74\pm0.25$. The assumption of purely adiabatic electron temperature change across the shock leads to $M=2.53^{+0.33}_{-0.25}$, in better agreement with the X-ray estimate $M_X=2.57\pm0.23$ derived for the same heating scenario. We have demonstrated that interferometric observations of the SZ effect provide constraints on the properties of the shock in the Bullet Cluster that are highly complementary to X-ray observations. The combination of X-ray and SZ data yields a powerful probe of the shock properties, capable of measuring $M$ and addressing the question of electron-ion equilibration in cluster shocks. Our analysis is however limited by systematics related to the overall cluster geometry and the complexity of the post-shock gas distribution. To overcome these limitations, a joint analysis of SZ and X-ray data is needed.