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Issue A&A
Volume 476, Number 1, December II 2007
Page(s) 83 - 88
Section Cosmology (including clusters of galaxies)
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20078478



A&A 476, 83-88 (2007)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20078478

The actual Rees-Sciama effect from the local universe

M. Maturi1, 2, K. Dolag2, A. Waelkens2, V. Springel2, and T. Enßlin2

1  Zentrum für Astronomie, ITA, Universität Heidelberg, Albert-Überle-Str. 2, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
    e-mail: maturi@ita.uni-heidelberg.de
2  Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, 85741 Garching, Germany

(Received 14 August 2007 / Accepted 21 September 2007)

Abstract
Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) have revealed an unexpected quadrupole-octopole alignment along a preferred axis pointing toward the Virgo cluster. We here investigate whether this feature can be explained in the framework of the concordance model by secondary anisotropies produced by the non-linear evolution of the gravitational potential, the so-called Rees-Sciama (RS) effect. We focus on the effect caused by the local superclusters, which we calculate using a constrained high-resolution hydrodynamical simulation, based on the IRAS 1.2-Jy all-sky galaxy redshift survey, which reproduces the main structures of our Universe out to a distance of 110 Mpc from our Galaxy. The resulting RS effect peaks at low multipoles and has a minimum/maximum amplitude of -6.6 $\mu$K/ 1.9 $\mu$K. Even though its quadrupole is well aligned with the one measured for the CMB, its amplitude is not sufficient to explain the observed magnitude of the quadrupole/octopole alignment. To have an effect comparable to the actual CMB fluctuations, photons traversing the local cosmic structures would need to experience a five/ten times larger gravitational redshift than would be expected in a standard scenario with dark matter and Newtonian gravity. In addition, we analyze the WMAP-3 data with a linear matched filter in an attempt to determine an upper limit for the RS signal amplitude on large scales. We found that it is possible to infer a weak upper limit of 30 $\mu$K for its maximum amplitude.


Key words: cosmic microwave background



© ESO 2007


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