Measurement of the pairwise kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect with Planck and BOSS data

TL;DR

This paper measures the pairwise kSZ effect using Planck CMB data and BOSS galaxy surveys, constraining the mean optical depth and exploring its dependence on filter size and halo mass.

Contribution

It presents a novel measurement of the pairwise kSZ effect with improved methodology, including the construction of a new galaxy catalog and halo model fitting, providing new constraints on optical depth.

Findings

Mean optical depth constraints for different galaxy samples.

Maximum detection at a 7 arcmin aperture photometry size.

Dependence of the kSZ signal on halo mass and galaxy sample.

Abstract

We present a new measurement of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (kSZ) using Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) and Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) data. Using the `LowZ North/South' galaxy catalogue from BOSS DR12, and the group catalogue from BOSS DR13, we evaluate the mean pairwise kSZ temperature associated with BOSS galaxies. We construct a `Central Galaxies Catalogue' (CGC) which consists of isolated galaxies from the original BOSS data set, and apply the aperture photometry (AP) filter to suppress the primary CMB contribution. By constructing a halo model to fit the pairwise kSZ function, we constrain the mean optical depth to be $\bar{\tau}=(0.53\pm0.32)\times10^{-4}(1.65\,\sigma)$ for `LowZ North CGC', $\bar{\tau}=(0.30\pm0.57)\times10^{-4}(0.53\,\sigma)$ for `LowZ South CGC', and $\bar{\tau}=(0.43\pm0.28)\times10^{-4}(1.53\,\sigma)$ for `DR13 Group'. In addition, we vary the radius of the AP filter and find that the AP size of $7\,{\rm arcmin}$ gives the maximum detection for $\bar{\tau}$. We also investigate the dependence of the signal with halo mass and find $\bar{\tau}=(0.32\pm0.36)\times10^{-4}(0.8\,\sigma)$ and $\bar{\tau}=(0.67\pm0.46)\times10^{-4}(1.4\,\sigma)$ for `DR13 Group' with halo mass restricted to, respectively, less and greater than its median halo mass, $10^{12}\, h^{-1}{\rm M}_{\odot}$. For the `LowZ North CGC' sample restricted to $M_{\rm h} \gtrsim 10^{14}\, h^{-1}{\rm M}_\odot$ there is no detection of the kSZ signal because these high mass halos are associated with the high-redshift galaxies of the LowZ North catalogue, which have limited contribution to the pairwise kSZ signals.