Ultralight axions and the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect

The Sunyaev - Zeldovich Effect

During passage through a cluster of galaxies some of the photons of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation are scattered by electrons in the hot intracluster (IC) gas. The scattering slightly modifies the incident Planck spectrum, imprinting on it a unique spectral signature that was first described by Sunyaev & Zeldovich (1972). [The impact of hypothetical hot intergalactic gas on the...

Sunyaev–Zeldovich Effect

Kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect from galaxy cluster rotation

We show how the temperature and the polarisation of the cosmic microwave background are affected by bulk rotation of clusters of galaxies owing to the kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. The main effects of rotation are (i) a shift of the position of the peak of the temperature fluctuation relative to the center of the cluster by a few percent of the core radius and (ii) a tilt of the direction o...

Planck Data and Ultralight Axions

We examine the effects of photon-axion mixing on the CMB. We show that if there are very underdense regions between us and the last scattering surface which contain coherent magnetic fields (whose strength can be orders of magnitude weaker than the current bounds), then photon-axion mixing can induce observable deviations in the CMB spectrum. Specifically, we show that the mixing can give rise ...

The Sunyaev-zeldovich Effect: Current Status and Future Prospects

The detailed spectral and spatial characteristics of the signature imprinted on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation by Compton scattering of the radiation by electrons in the hot gas in clusters of galaxies the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (S-Z) effect are of great astrophysical and cosmological significance. In recent years observations of the effect have improved tremendously; high signal-to...