2014/04/30 by Geraint Pratten, G. Pratten, D. Munshi +1 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Cosmic background radiation #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Halo #Optics #Physics #Redshift #Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect #Weak gravitational lensing #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stu807
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 442(1), 759-783 (Oxford University Press) · 27 pages, 12 Figures. Published in MNRAS
openalex publication_date 2014/06/09 · arxiv created 2014/06/10 · arxiv updated 2014/06/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The thermal Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect measures the line-of-sight projection of the thermal pressure of free electrons and lacks any redshift information. By cross-correlating the tSZ effect with an external cosmological tracer, we can recover a good fraction of this lost information. Weak lensing (WL) is thought to provide an unbiased probe of the dark Universe, with many WL surveys having sky coverage that overlaps with tSZ surveys. Generalizing the tomographic approach, we advocate the use of the spherical Fourier–Bessel expansion to perform an analysis of the cross-correlation between the projected (2D) tSZ Compton y-parameter maps and 3D WL convergence maps. We use redshift-dependent linear biasing and the halo model as a tool to investigate the tSZ–WL cross-correlations in 3D. We use the Press–Schechter and the Sheth–Tormen mass functions in our calculations, finding that the results are quite sensitive to detailed modelling. We provide detailed analysis of surveys with photometric and spectroscopic redshifts. The signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the cross-spectra |\cal Cℓ (k)| for individual 3D modes, defined by the radial and tangential wave numbers (k; ℓ), remains comparable to, but below, unity though optimal binning is expected to improve this. The results presented can be generalized to analyse other cosmic microwave background secondaries, such as the kinetic Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect.