English

Observations of compact sources in galaxy clusters using MUSTANG2

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2021-09-29 v2

Abstract

Compact sources can cause scatter in the scaling relationships between the amplitude of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect (tSZE) in galaxy clusters and cluster mass. Estimates of the importance of this scatter vary - largely due to limited data on sources in clusters at the frequencies at which tSZE cluster surveys operate. In this paper we present 90 GHz compact source measurements from a sample of 30 clusters observed using the MUSTANG2 instrument on the Green Bank Telescope. We present simulations of how a source's flux density, spectral index, and angular separation from the cluster's center affect the measured tSZE in clusters detected by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). By comparing the MUSTANG2 measurements with these simulations we calibrate an empirical relationship between 1.4 GHz flux densities from radio surveys and source contamination in ACT tSZE measurements. We find 3 per cent of the ACT clusters have more than a 20 per cent decrease in Compton-y but another 3 per cent have a 10 per cent increase in the Compton-y due to the matched filters used to find clusters. As sources affect the measured tSZE signal and hence the likelihood that a cluster will be detected, testing the level of source contamination in the tSZE signal using a tSZE selected catalog is inherently biased. We confirm this by comparing the ACT tSZE catalog with optically and X-ray selected cluster catalogs. There is a strong case for a large, high resolution survey of clusters to better characterize their source population.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2107.06725,
  title  = {Observations of compact sources in galaxy clusters using MUSTANG2},
  author = {Simon R. Dicker and Elia S. Battistelli and Tanay Bhandarkar and Mark J. Devlin and Shannon M. Duff and Gene Hilton and Matt Hilton and Adam D. Hincks and Johannes Hubmayr and Kevin Huffenberger and John P. Hughes and Luca Di Mascolo and Brian S. Mason and J. A. B. Mates and Jeff McMahon and Tony Mroczkowski and Sigurd Naess and John Orlowski-Scherer and Bruce Partridge and Federico Radiconi and Charles Romero and Craig L. Sarazin and Neelima Sehgal and Jonathan Sievers and Cristóbal Sifón and Joel Ullom and Leila R. Vale and Michael R. Vissers and Zhilei Xu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.06725},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

13 Pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, with 4 pages of online only figures at end. Published on-line in MNRAS on 22/9/2021

R2 v1 2026-06-24T04:11:35.138Z