328 research outputs found
On the Statistical Significance of the Bulk Flow Measured by the PLANCK Satellite
A recent analysis of data collected by the Planck satellite detected a net
dipole at the location of X-ray selected galaxy clusters, corresponding to a
large-scale bulk flow extending at least to , the median redshift
of the cluster sample. The amplitude of this flow, as measured with Planck, is
consistent with earlier findings based on data from the Wilkinson Microwave
Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). However, the uncertainty assigned to the dipole by the
Planck team is much larger than that found in the WMAP studies, leading the
authors of the Planck study to conclude that the observed bulk flow is not
statistically significant. We here show that two of the three implementations
of random sampling used in the error analysis of the Planck study lead to
systematic overestimates in the uncertainty of the measured dipole. Random
simulations of the sky do not take into account that the actual realization of
the sky leads to filtered data that have a 12% lower root-mean-square
dispersion than the average simulation. Using rotations around the Galactic
pole (the Z axis), increases the uncertainty of the X and Y components of the
dipole and artificially reduces the significance of the dipole detection from
98-99% to less than 90% confidence. When either effect is taken into account,
the corrected errors agree with those obtained using random distributions of
clusters on Planck data, and the resulting statistical significance of the
dipole measured by Planck is consistent with that of the WMAP results.Comment: A & A, in pres
A measurement of large-scale peculiar velocities of clusters of galaxies: results and cosmological implications
Peculiar velocities of clusters of galaxies can be measured by studying the
fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) generated by the
scattering of the microwave photons by the hot X-ray emitting gas inside
clusters. While for individual clusters such measurements result in large
errors, a large statistical sample of clusters allows one to study cumulative
quantities dominated by the overall bulk flow of the sample with the
statistical errors integrating down. We present results from such a measurement
using the largest all-sky X-ray cluster catalog combined to date and the 3-year
WMAP CMB data. We find a strong and coherent bulk flow on scales out to at
least > 300 h^{-1} Mpc, the limit of our catalog. This flow is difficult to
explain by gravitational evolution within the framework of the concordance LCDM
model and may be indicative of the tilt exerted across the entire current
horizon by far-away pre-inflationary inhomogeneities.Comment: Ap.J. (Letters), in press. 20 Oct issue (Vol. 686
Temperature Anisotropies and Distortions Induced by Hot Intracluster Gas on the Cosmic Microwave Background
The power spectrum of temperature anisotropies induced by hot intracluster
gas on the cosmic background radiation is calculated. For low multipoles it
remains constant while at multipoles above it is exponentially damped.
The shape of the radiation power spectrum is almost independent of the average
intracluster gas density profile, gas evolution history or clusters virial
radii; but the amplitude depends strongly on those parameters and could be as
large as 20% that of intrinsic contribution. The exact value depends on the
global properties of the cluster population and the evolution of the
intracluster gas. The distortion on the Cosmic Microwave Background black body
spectra varies in a similar manner. The ratio of the temperature anisotropy to
the mean Comptonization parameters is shown to be almost independent of the
cluster model and, in first approximation, depends only on the number density
of clusters.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, 3 figures; to be published in Ap
Determining cosmic microwave background structure from its peak distribution
We present a new method for time-efficient and accurate extraction of the
power spectrum from future cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps based on
properties of peaks and troughs of the Gaussian CMB sky. We construct a
statistic describing their angular clustering - analogously to galaxies, the
2-point angular correlation function, . We show that for
increasing peak threshold, , the is strongly amplified
and becomes measurable for 1 on angular scales . Its
amplitude at every scale depends uniquely on the CMB temperature correlation
function, , and thus the measured can be uniquely inverted
to obtain and its Legendre transform, the power spectrum of the CMB
field. Because in this method the CMB power spectrum is deduced from high
peaks/troughs of the CMB field, the procedure takes only
operations where is the fraction of pixels with
standard deviations in the map of pixels and is e.g. 0.045 and 0.01 for
=2 and 2.5 respectively. We develop theoretical formalism for the method
and show with detailed simulations, using MAP mission parameters, that this
method allows to determine very accurately the CMB power spectrum from the
upcoming CMB maps in only operations.Comment: To be published in Ap.J. Letters. Minor changes to match the journal
versio
Limits on Hot Intracluster Gas Contributions to the Tenerife Temperature Anisotropy Map
We limit the contribution of the hot intracluster gas, by means of the
Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, to the temperature anisotropies measured by the
Tenerife experiment. The data is cross-correlated with maps generated from the
ACO cluster catalogue, the ROSAT PSPC catalogue of clusters of galaxies, a
catalogue of superclusters and the HEAO 1 A-1 map of X-ray sources. There is no
evidence of contamination by such sources at an rms level of K at
99% confidence level at angular resolution. We place an upper limit on
the mean Comptonization parameter of at the same
level of confidence. These limits are slightly more restrictive than those
previously found by a similar analysis on the COBE/DMR data and indicate that
most of the signal measured by Tenerife is cosmological.Comment: To be published in ApJ (main journal
Measuring the dark flow with public X-ray cluster data
We present new results on the "dark flow" from a measurement of the dipole in
the distribution of peculiar velocities of galaxy clusters, applying the
methodology proposed and developed by us earlier. Our latest measurement is
conducted using new, low-noise 7-yr WMAP data as well as an all-sky sample of
X-ray selected galaxy clusters compiled exclusively from published catalogs.
Our analysis of the CMB signature of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ)
effect finds a statistically significant dipole at the location of galaxy
clusters. The residual dipole outside the cluster regions is small, rendering
our overall measurement 3-4 sigma significant. The amplitude of the dipole
correlates with cluster properties, being larger for the most X-ray luminous
clusters, as required if the signal is produced by the SZ effect. Since it is
measured at zero monopole, the dipole can not be due to the thermal SZ effect.
Our results are consistent with those obtained earlier by us from 5-yr WMAP
data and using a proprietary cluster catalog. In addition, they are robust to
quadrupole removal, demonstrating that quadrupole leakage contributes
negligibly to the signal. The lower noise of the 7-yr WMAP also allows us, for
the first time, to obtain tentative empirical confirmation of our earlier
conjecture that the adopted filtering flips the sign of the KSZ effect for
realistic clusters and thus of the deduced direction of the flow. The latter is
consistent with our earlier measurement in both the amplitude and direction.
Assuming the filtering indeed flips the sign of the KSZ effect from the
clusters, the direction agrees well also with the results of independent work
using galaxies as tracers at lower distances. We make all maps and cluster
templates derived by us from public data available to the scientific community
to allow independent tests of our method and findings.Comment: ApJ, in press. Replaced with accepted version. The data needed for
these results are at http://www.kashlinsky.info/bulkflows/data_publi
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