2005/02/28 by Patrick M. Motl, Eric Hallman, Eric J. Hallman +2 · 10 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/430144
published as Astrophys.J. 623 (2005) L63-L66 · 4+ pages, 2 figures, accepted to ApJ Letters; minor changes to text, added references
arxiv created 2005/03/22 · openalex publication_date 2005/03/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
We investigate empirical scaling relations between the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE) and cluster mass in simulated clusters of galaxies. The simulated clusters have been compiled from four different samples that differ only in their assumed baryonic physics. We show that the strength of the thermal SZE integrated over a significant fraction of the virialized region of the clusters is relatively insensitive to the detailed heating and cooling processes in the cores of clusters, by demonstrating that the derived scaling relations are nearly identical among the four cluster samples considered. For our synthetic images, the central Comptonization parameter shows significant boosting during transient merging events, but the integrated SZE appears to be relatively insensitive to these events. Most importantly, the integrated SZE closely tracks the underlying cluster mass. Observations through the thermal SZE allow a strikingly accurate mass estimation from relatively simple measurements that do not require either parametric modeling or geometric deprojection and thus avoid assumptions regarding the physics of the intracluster medium or the symmetry of the cluster. This result offers significant promise for precision cosmology using clusters of galaxies.