Measurements of Secondary Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies with the South Pole Telescope

TL;DR

This paper presents measurements of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies from the South Pole Telescope, detecting secondary effects like the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich signal and discussing implications for cosmological parameters such as sigma8.

Contribution

First detailed CMB power spectrum measurements from the SPT at 150 and 220 GHz, including detection of SZ power and analysis of galaxy cluster models.

Findings

Consistent primary CMB anisotropy with LambdaCDM on large scales.

Detection of SZ power at 2.6 sigma significance.

Lower SZ power than predicted by standard models, implying potential revisions in cluster physics or cosmological parameters.

Abstract

We report cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum measurements from the first 100 sq. deg. field observed by the South Pole Telescope (SPT) at 150 and 220 GHz. On angular scales where the primary CMB anisotropy is dominant, ell ~< 3000, the SPT power spectrum is consistent with the standard LambdaCDM cosmology. On smaller scales, we see strong evidence for a point source contribution, consistent with a population of dusty, star-forming galaxies. After we mask bright point sources, anisotropy power on angular scales of 3000 < ell < 9500 is detected with a signal-to-noise > 50 at both frequencies. We combine the 150 and 220 GHz data to remove the majority of the point source power, and use the point source subtracted spectrum to detect Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) power at 2.6 sigma. At ell=3000, the SZ power in the subtracted bandpowers is 4.2 +/- 1.5 uK^2, which is significantly lower than the power predicted by a fiducial model using WMAP5 cosmological parameters. This discrepancy may suggest that contemporary galaxy cluster models overestimate the thermal pressure of intracluster gas. Alternatively, this result can be interpreted as evidence for lower values of sigma8. When combined with an estimate of the kinetic SZ contribution, the measured SZ amplitude shifts sigma8 from the primary CMB anisotropy derived constraint of 0.794 +/- 0.028 down to 0.773 +/- 0.025. The uncertainty in the constraint on sigma8 from this analysis is dominated by uncertainties in the theoretical modeling required to predict the amplitude of the SZ power spectrum for a given set of cosmological parameters.