2003/05/08 by A. Sandoval-Villalbazo, Sandoval-Villalbazo, A., L. S. Garcı́a-Colı́n +2
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Heat Transfer and Mathematical Modeling #Material Science and Thermodynamics #Radiative Heat Transfer Studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0305144
3 pages. Typos corrected
openalex publication_date 2003/05/08 · arxiv created 2003/06/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In a previous publication we have derived an expression for the full distorted spectrum arising when the photons of the cosmic background radiation are absorbed and emitted by an optically thin gas. The expression simply adds up the effects of the joint probability that an electron absorbs an incoming photon of frequencyν\small and emits it with a frequencyν\small . We here show that such an expression is identical to the Kompaneets equation describing the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. This clearly shows that the two pictures, diffusion and absorption-emission are mathematically equivalent to first order in the Compton parameter. Other consequences of this result are also discussed.