Special Astrophysics Seminar

Cross correlations with CMB secondaries: constraining cosmological parameters and cluster astrophysics

Nick Battaglia

Princeton

High resolution CMB experiments, such as ACT, SPT, and the Planck satellite are making precision measurements of the secondary anisotropies caused by the thermal Sunyaev Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect from galaxy clusters. However, our ability to obtain cosmological information from this tSZ signal is limited by our theoretical understanding of the baryons in clusters and groups. I will discuss how cross-correlation methods are providing new windows into the messy “astrophysics” of the intracluster medium and the potential for these methods to constrain various cosmological parameters.