2008/11/30 by Teeraparb Chantavat, Christopher Gordon, Chris Gordon +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Astrophysics #Cluster (spacecraft) #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy cluster #Gravitational lens #Physics #Planck #Quantum mechanics #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Redshift #Scaling #Spectral density #Statistics #Weak gravitational lensing #astro-ph #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.79.083508
published as Phys.Rev.D79:083508,2009 · Clarifications added and a few minor corrections made. Matches version to appear in PRD
arxiv created 2009/04/01 · openalex publication_date 2009/04/09 · arxiv updated 2015/03/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We investigate how well galaxy cluster number counts can constrain the primordial power spectrum. Measurements of the primary anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background may be limited, by the presence of foregrounds from secondary sources, to probing the primordial power spectrum at wave numbers less than about 0.30h Mpc^\ensuremath-1. We break up the primordial power spectrum into a number of nodes and interpolate linearly between each node. This allows us to show that cluster number counts could then extend the constraints on the form of the primordial power spectrum up to wave numbers of about 0.45h Mpc^\ensuremath-1. We estimate combinations of constraints from PLANCK and SPT primary cosmic microwave background and their respective Sunyaev-Zeldovich surveys. We find that their constraining ability is limited by uncertainties in the mass-scaling relations. We also estimate the constraint from clusters detected from a SNAP-like gravitational lensing survey. As there is an unambiguous and simple relationship between the filtered shear of the lensing survey and the cluster mass, it may be possible to obtain much tighter constraints on the primordial power spectrum in this case.