Clustering of SZ clusters on a past light-cone: acoustic oscillations and constraints on dark energy

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, 86740 Garching bei München, Germany e-mail: gert@mpa-garching.mpg.de
² Tartu Observatory, Tõravere 61602, Estonia

Received: 20 May 2005
Accepted: 9 September 2005

Abstract

We study the clustering of SZ-selected galaxy clusters on a past light-cone, particularly paying attention to the possibility of constraining properties of dark energy. The prospects of detecting baryonic features in the cluster power spectrum for a wide and shallow survey like PLANCK, and for an SPT-like narrow and deep survey are discussed. It is demonstrated that these future blank sky SZ surveys will have the capability to improve over the recently announced detection of baryonic oscillations based on the SDSS Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) sample. We carry out parameter estimation using a Fisher matrix approach taking into account the anisotropic nature of the power spectrum due to redshift space and cosmological distortions. The clustering signal which is not too sensitive to systematic uncertainties serves as a valuable piece of information that in combination with other sources of data helps in breaking degeneracies between the cosmological parameters.