2002/05/31 by Martin White, Lars Hernquist, Volker Springel · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Computational physics #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy cluster #Gaussian #Intergalactic medium #Luminosity #Optics #Physics #Radiative cooling #Radiative transfer #Redshift #Spectral density #Star formation #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect #Thermal #Thermodynamics #Wavelength #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/342756
published as Astrophys.J.579:16,2002 · 8 pages, 6 figures, modified to reflect version accepted by ApJ
arxiv created 2002/07/08 · openalex publication_date 2002/10/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We present results on the thermal and kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effects from a sequence of high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations of structure formation, including cooling, feedback, and metal injection. These simulations represent a self-consistent thermal model that incorporates ideas from the "preheating" scenario while preserving good agreement with the low-density intergalactic medium at z ~ 3 probed by the Lyα forest. Four simulations were performed, at two different resolutions with and without radiative effects and star formation. The long-wavelength modes in each simulation were the same, so we can compare the results on an object-by-object basis. We demonstrate that our simulations are converged to the subarcminute level. The effect of the additional physics is to suppress the mean Comptonization parameter by 20% and to suppress the angular power spectrum of fluctuations by just under a factor of 2 in this model, while leaving the source counts and properties relatively unchanged. We quantify how non-Gaussianity in the SZ maps increases the sample variance over the standard result for Gaussian fluctuations. We identify a large scatter in the Y - M relation that will be important in searches for clusters using the SZ effect(s).