An Improved Model For Fitting Sze + X-ray Observations Of Galaxy Clusters
Abstract
We demonstrate the utility of a new model, recently shown to be a robust, self-similar pressure profile, for fitting current and future generations of Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE) observations of galaxy clusters. Modern SZE imaging instruments such as the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Array (SZA) are sensitive to arcminute scales ( 1-6'), meaning they are capable of probing out to half the virial radius of most clusters above redshift z>0.2. The need for a model that can describe a cluster's pressure profile at all observable radii has become crucial to the study of the SZE from clusters. Therefore, a new pressure profile motivated by simulations and detailed X-ray observations has been developed and tested on simulated and real observations. We find that we are able to constrain this model with current SZ data, without relying on X-ray determined density model shape parameters. We find this model provides an unbiased recovery of SZE flux from simulations, and, when combined with X-ray imaging to constrain the density, it yields the electron temperature profile without relying on X-ray spectroscopic information. In addition to yielding more accurate relationships between cluster observables and physical cluster properties, this model could prove to be a useful tool in helping to constrain the temperatures of high redshift clusters.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2007
- Bibcode:
- 2007AAS...211.6703M