The First Public Release of South Pole Telescope Data: Maps of a 95 deg^2 Field from 2008 Observations

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) has nearly completed a 2500 deg^2 survey of the southern sky in three frequency bands. Here, we present the first public release of SPT maps and associated data products. We present arcminute-resolution maps at 150 GHz and 220 GHz of an approximately 95 deg^2 field centered at R.A. 82°.7, decl. –55°. The field was observed to a depth of approximately 17 μK arcmin at 150 GHz and 41 μK arcmin at 220 GHz during the 2008 austral winter season. Two variations on map filtering and map projection are presented, one tailored for producing catalogs of galaxy clusters detected through their Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect signature and one tailored for producing catalogs of emissive sources. We describe the data processing pipeline, and we present instrument response functions, filter transfer functions, and map noise properties. All data products described in this paper are available for download at http://pole.uchicago.edu/public/data/maps/ra5h30dec-55 and from the NASA Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis server. This is the first step in the eventual release of data from the full 2500 deg^2 SPT survey

ALMA Observations of SPT-discovered, Strongly Lensed, Dusty, Star-forming Galaxies

We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 860 μm imaging of four high-redshift (z = 2.8-5.7) dusty sources that were detected using the South Pole Telescope (SPT) at 1.4 mm and are not seen in existing radio to far-infrared catalogs. At 1."5 resolution, the ALMA data reveal multiple images of each submillimeter source, separated by 1"-3", consistent with strong lensing by intervening galaxies visible in near-IR imaging of these sources. We describe a gravitational lens modeling procedure that operates on the measured visibilities and incorporates self-calibration-like antenna phase corrections as part of the model optimization, which we use to interpret the source structure. Lens models indicate that SPT0346-52, located at z = 5.7, is one of the most luminous and intensely star-forming sources in the universe with a lensing corrected FIR luminosity of 3.7 × 10^(13) L_☉ and star formation surface density of 4200 M_☉ yr^(–1) kpc^(–2). We find magnification factors of 5 to 22, with lens Einstein radii of 1."1-2."0 and Einstein enclosed masses of 1.6-7.2 × 10^(11) M_☉. These observations confirm the lensing origin of these objects, allow us to measure their intrinsic sizes and luminosities, and demonstrate the important role that ALMA will play in the interpretation of lensed submillimeter sources

Analysis of Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect mass–observable relations using South Pole Telescope observations of an X-ray selected sample of low-mass galaxy clusters and groups

We use microwave observations from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) to examine the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect (SZE) signatures of a sample of 46 X-ray selected groups and clusters drawn from ∼6 deg^2 of the XMM–Newton Blanco Cosmology Survey. These systems extend to redshift z = 1.02 and probe the SZE signal to the lowest X-ray luminosities (≥10^(42) erg s^(−1)) yet; these sample characteristics make this analysis complementary to previous studies. We develop an analysis tool, using X-ray luminosity as a mass proxy, to extract selection-bias-corrected constraints on the SZE significance and Y500 mass relations. The former is in good agreement with an extrapolation of the relation obtained from high-mass clusters. However, the latter, at low masses, while in good agreement with the extrapolation from the high-mass SPT clusters, is in tension at 2.8σ with the Planck constraints, indicating the low-mass systems exhibit lower SZE signatures in the SPT data. We also present an analysis of potential sources of contamination. For the radio galaxy point source population, we find 18 of our systems have 843 MHz Sydney University Molonglo Sky Survey sources within 2 arcmin of the X-ray centre, and three of these are also detected at significance >4 by SPT. Of these three, two are associated with the group brightest cluster galaxies, and the third is likely an unassociated quasar candidate. We examine the impact of these point sources on our SZE scaling relation analyses and find no evidence of biases. We also examine the impact of dusty galaxies using constraints from the 220 GHz data. The stacked sample provides 2.8σ significant evidence of dusty galaxy flux, which would correspond to an average underestimate of the SPT Y_(500) signal that is (17 ± 9) per cent in this sample of low-mass systems. Finally, we explore the impact of future data from SPTpol and XMM-XXL, showing that it will lead to a factor of 4 to 5 tighter constraints on these SZE mass–observable relations

Galaxy Clusters Discovered via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect in the 2500-Square-Degree SPT-SZ Survey

We present a catalog of galaxy clusters selected via their Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect signature from 2500 deg^2 of South Pole Telescope (SPT) data. This work represents the complete sample of clusters detected at high significance in the 2500 deg^2 SPT-SZ survey, which was completed in 2011. A total of 677 (409) cluster candidates are identified above a signal-to-noise threshold of ξ = 4.5 (5.0). Ground- and space-based optical and near-infrared (NIR) imaging confirms overdensities of similarly colored galaxies in the direction of 516 (or 76%) of the ξ > 4.5 candidates and 387 (or 95%) of the ξ > 5 candidates; the measured purity is consistent with expectations from simulations. Of these confirmed clusters, 415 were first identified in SPT data, including 251 new discoveries reported in this work. We estimate photometric redshifts for all candidates with identified optical and/or NIR counterparts; we additionally report redshifts derived from spectroscopic observations for 141 of these systems. The mass threshold of the catalog is roughly independent of redshift above z ~ 0.25 leading to a sample of massive clusters that extends to high redshift. The median mass of the sample is M_(500c(ρcrit)) ~ 3.5 x 10^(14)M_☉ h_(70)^(-1), the median redshift is z_(med) = 0.55, and the highest-redshift systems are at z > 1.4. The combination of large redshift extent, clean selection, and high typical mass makes this cluster sample of particular interest for cosmological analyses and studies of cluster formation and evolution

Submillimeter Observations of Millimeter Bright Galaxies Discovered by the South Pole Telescope

We present APEX SABOCA 350 μm and LABOCA 870 μm observations of 11 representative examples of the rare, extremely bright (_( 1.4 mm) > 15 mJy), dust-dominated millimeter-selected galaxies recently discovered by the South Pole Telescope. All 11 sources are robustly detected with LABOCA with 40 mJy 3σ, with the detections or upper limits providing a key constraint on the shape of the spectral energy distribution (SED) near its peak. We model the SEDs of these galaxies using a simple modified blackbody and perform the same analysis on samples of SMGs of known redshift from the literature. These calibration samples inform the distribution of dust temperature for similar SMG populations, and this dust temperature prior allows us to derive photometric redshift estimates and far-infrared luminosities for the sources. We find a median redshift of z = 3.0, higher than the z = 2.2 inferred for the normal SMG population. We also derive the apparent size of the sources from the temperature and apparent luminosity, finding them to appear larger than our unlensed calibration sample, which supports the idea that these sources are gravitationally magnified by massive structures along the line of sight

The Redshift Evolution of the Mean Temperature, Pressure, and Entropy Profiles in 80 SPT-Selected Galaxy Clusters

We present the results of an X-ray analysis of 80 galaxy clusters selected in the 2500 deg^2 South Pole Telescope survey and observed with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. We divide the full sample into subsamples of ~20 clusters based on redshift and central density, performing a joint X-ray spectral fit to all clusters in a subsample simultaneously, assuming self-similarity of the temperature profile. This approach allows us to constrain the shape of the temperature profile over 0 R_(500)) regions than their low-z (0.3 < z < 0.6) counterparts. Combining the average temperature profile with measured gas density profiles from our earlier work, we infer the average pressure and entropy profiles for each subsample. Confirming earlier results from this data set, we find an absence of strong cool cores at high z, manifested in this analysis as a significantly lower observed pressure in the central 0.1R_(500) of the high-z cool-core subset of clusters compared to the low-z cool-core subset. Overall, our observed pressure profiles agree well with earlier lower-redshift measurements, suggesting minimal redshift evolution in the pressure profile outside of the core. We find no measurable redshift evolution in the entropy profile at r ≲ 0.7R_(500)—this may reflect a long-standing balance between cooling and feedback over long timescales and large physical scales. We observe a slight flattening of the entropy profile at r gsim R_(500) in our high-z subsample. This flattening is consistent with a temperature bias due to the enhanced (~3×) rate at which group-mass (~2 keV) halos, which would go undetected at our survey depth, are accreting onto the cluster at z ~ 1. This work demonstrates a powerful method for inferring spatially resolved cluster properties in the case where individual cluster signal-to-noise is low, but the number of observed clusters is high

ALMA Redshifts of Millimeter-selected Galaxies from the SPT Survey: The Redshift Distribution of Dusty Star-forming Galaxies

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, we have conducted a blind redshift survey in the 3 mm atmospheric transmission window for 26 strongly lensed dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) selected with the South Pole Telescope. The sources were selected to have S_(1.4mm) > 20 mJy and a dust-like spectrum and, to remove low-z sources, not have bright radio (S_843MHz) 3. We discuss the effect of gravitational lensing on the redshift distribution and compare our measured redshift distribution to that of models in the literature

Initial Performance of BICEP3: A Degree Angular Scale 95 GHz Band Polarimeter

BICEP3 is a 550-mm aperture telescope with cold, on-axis, refractive optics designed to observe at the 95-GHz band from the South Pole. It is the newest member of the BICEP/Keck family of inflationary probes specifically designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at degree angular scales. BICEP3 is designed to house 1280 dual-polarization pixels, which, when fully populated, totals to ∼9× the number of pixels in a single Keck 95-GHz receiver, thus further advancing the BICEP/Keck program’s 95 GHz mapping speed. BICEP3 was deployed during the austral summer of 2014–2015 with nine detector tiles, to be increased to its full capacity of 20 in the second season. After instrument characterization, measurements were taken, and CMB observation commenced in April 2015. Together with multi-frequency observation data from Planck, BICEP2, and the Keck Array, BICEP3 is projected to set upper limits on the tensor-to-scalar ratio to r ≲ 0.03 at 95 % C.L