Accessing the Acceleration of the Universe with Sunyaev-Zel'dovich and X-ray Data from Galaxy Clusters

TL;DR

This paper uses Sunyaev-Zel'dovich and X-ray data from galaxy clusters to measure the universe's acceleration in a model-independent way, avoiding assumptions about gravity theories or matter content.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, purely observational method to determine cosmic acceleration using galaxy cluster data without relying on specific cosmological models.

Findings

Successfully measured cosmic acceleration independently of gravity theories.

Demonstrated the viability of using galaxy cluster data for cosmological insights.

Provided constraints consistent with standard cosmological models.

Abstract

By using exclusively the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and X-ray surface brightness data from 25 galaxy clusters in the redshift range 0.023< z < 0.784 we access cosmic acceleration employing a kinematic description. Such result is fully independent on the validity of any metric gravity theory, the possible matter-energy contents filling the Universe, as well as on the SNe Ia Hubble diagram.