English

An Imprint of Super-Structures on the Microwave Background due to the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We measure hot and cold spots on the microwave background associated with supercluster and supervoid structures identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Luminous Red Galaxy catalog. The structures give a compelling visual imprint, with a mean temperature deviation of 9.6 +/- 2.2 microK, i.e. above 4 sigma. We interpret this as a detection of the late-time Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect, in which cosmic acceleration from dark energy causes gravitational potentials to decay, heating or cooling photons passing through density crests or troughs. In a flat universe, the linear ISW effect is a direct signal of dark energy.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0805.3695,
  title  = {An Imprint of Super-Structures on the Microwave Background due to the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect},
  author = {Benjamin R. Granett and Mark C. Neyrinck and István Szapudi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0805.3695},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, 2 figures, accepted to ApJ Letters. Minor changes to match accepted version