Cosmology with the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect: Testing fundamental physics and hydrodynamical simulations

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of this project is to develop a new analysis technique to extract the large scale motions of galaxy clusters via a technique using a phenomenon called the pairwise kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect. This effect is due to the scattering of cosmic microwave photons in galaxy clusters. Broader impacts of the work include research training of undergraduate students, and outreach with planetariums in New York and Philadelphia to give presentations to and engage with the public on ask an astronomer nights. The proposal team will also be actively involved in the Ithaca Physics Bus, a new outreach initiative modeled on a successful program based in Arizona, which brings physics demonstrations and science experiments to schools and public events using a converted school bus to promote excitement about STEM disciplines. The kinematic kSZ approach was used in the first detection of cluster motions in 2012 by cross-correlating Cosmic Microwave Background measurements from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) with optical spectroscopy of luminous red galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III (SDSS-III). Upcoming measurements will enable more than an order of magnitude improvement on this first detection, and the project team is uniquely poised to extract cosmological information from these measurements. The project team has recently shown that upcoming kSZ measurements have the potential to provide strong constraints on modified gravity, dark energy, and neutrinos.