CMB/kSZ and Compton-$y$ Maps from 2500 square degrees of SPT-SZ and Planck Survey Data

TL;DR

This paper introduces high-resolution, low-noise component-separated maps of the cosmic microwave background and thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect over 2500 square degrees, created from combined SPT and Planck data, enabling advanced astrophysical and cosmological studies.

Contribution

The authors develop and validate a new method for producing high-quality CMB and Compton-$y$ maps from combined SPT and Planck data, improving resolution and noise characteristics over previous maps.

Findings

Maps have 1.25 arcminute resolution for Compton-$y$

Validation tests show high accuracy and low contamination

Data products are publicly available for research use

Abstract

We present component-separated maps of the primary cosmic microwave background/kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) amplitude and the thermal SZ Compton-$y$ parameter, created using data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Planck satellite. These maps, which cover the $\sim$2500 square degrees of the Southern sky imaged by the SPT-SZ survey, represent a significant improvement over previous such products available in this region by virtue of their higher angular resolution (1.25 arcminutes for our highest resolution Compton-$y$ maps) and lower noise at small angular scales. In this work we detail the construction of these maps using linear combination techniques, including our method for limiting the correlation of our lowest-noise Compton-$y$ map products with the cosmic infrared background. We perform a range of validation tests on these data products to test our sky modeling and combination algorithms, and we find good performance in all of these tests. Recognizing the potential utility of these data products for a wide range of astrophysical and cosmological analyses, including studies of the gas properties of galaxies, groups, and clusters, we make these products publicly available at http://pole.uchicago.edu/public/data/sptsz_ymap and on the NASA/LAMBDA website.