Intracluster Medium through three years of WMAP
arXiv:astro-ph/0608503 · doi:10.1016/j.newar.2006.09.022
Abstract
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has provided us with the yet highest resolution all-sky maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background. As a result of thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, clusters of galaxies are imprinted as tiny, poorly resolved dips on top of primary CMB anisotropies in these maps. Here, I describe different efforts to extract the physics of Intracluster Medium (ICM) from the sea of primary CMB, through combining WMAP with low-redshift galaxy or X-ray cluster surveys. This finally culminates at a mean (universal) ICM pressure profile, which is for the first time directly constrained from WMAP 3yr maps, and leads to interesting constraints on the ICM baryonic budget.
9 pages and 4 figures; Proceedings of the Fundamental Physics With CMB workshop, UC Irvine, March 23-25, 2006, to be published in New Astronomy Reviews