Research Note

Probing the evolution of galaxy clusters with the SZ effect

¹ Dip. Fisica, Univ. “Tor Vergata”, via Ricerca Scientifica 1, 00133 Roma, Italy
e-mail: lapi@roma2.infn.it
² INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, via Frascati 33, 00040 Monteporzio, Italy
³ SISSA, via Bonomea 265, 34136 Trieste, Italy
⁴ INFN − Sezione di Trieste, via Valerio 2, 34127 Trieste, Italy
⁵ INAF − Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, via Tiepolo 11, 34131 Trieste, Italy

Received: 28 May 2014
Accepted: 9 October 2014

Abstract

In galaxy clusters the thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect from the hot intracluster medium (ICM) provides a direct, self-contained measure of the pressure integrated over crossing lines of sight, that is intrinsically independent of redshift and well suited for evolutionary studies. We show in detail how the size of the effect and its pattern on the sky plane are directly related to the entropy levels in the ICM, and how they characterize the cluster cores and outskirts independently. We find that at redshifts z ≲ 0.3 the signals to be expected in the cores considerably exceed those detected at 10′ resolution with the Planck satellite. We propose that at 1′ resolutions as implemented on recent ground instrumentation for mapping features in individual clusters, the average patterns of the SZ signals can provide a direct and effective way to find and count cool, low-entropy cores and hot, high-entropy outskirts out to z ~ 2. Such counts will tell the timing and the mode of the processes that drive the evolution of the ICM from the distant to the local cluster population.