Comparison of Halo Model and Simulation Predictions for Projected-Field Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Cross-Correlations

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rodriguez, Michael Jacob, Kusiak, Aleksandra, Pandey, Shivam, Hill, J. Colin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917512790147072
author Rodriguez, Michael Jacob
Kusiak, Aleksandra
Pandey, Shivam
Hill, J. Colin
author_facet Rodriguez, Michael Jacob
Kusiak, Aleksandra
Pandey, Shivam
Hill, J. Colin
contents The kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is a powerful probe of gas physics and large-scale structure (LSS) in our universe. We consider the "projected-field" kSZ estimator, which involves cross-correlating a foreground-cleaned, filtered, squared CMB temperature map with an LSS tracer, and requires no individual tracer redshifts. We compare $\verb|class_sz|$ halo model calculations of projected-field kSZ cross-correlations with measurements of these signals from the Websky numerical simulations. We cross-correlate halo density maps from Websky with various CMB secondary signals. We first validate our halo model by comparing its predictions for thermal SZ (tSZ) and patchy screening ($τ$) cross-correlations to measurements of these signals from Websky. We consider three different halo redshift ranges in our comparisons. We also construct our own kSZ, tSZ, and $τ$ maps to validate the form of the relevant profiles. Following the tSZ and $τ$ validation, we compare projected-field kSZ calculations between the halo model and the simulations. We use filters constructed for $\textit{Planck}$ and the Simons Observatory (SO) to assess the accuracy of the halo-model kSZ predictions for experiments of differing sensitivity. Overall, we find good agreement, particularly at $\textit{Planck}$ sensitivity. However, we find an $\approx$ 20$\%$ difference between our halo model and the simulations for SO, which significantly exceeds the predicted error bars. We note that our halo model includes only the dominant expected term in the projected-field kSZ signal; the magnitude of the difference between our model and the simulations is consistent with previous predictions for terms arising from other contractions in the theory calculation. These terms will need to be included to obtain unbiased inference from upcoming projected-field kSZ measurements.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_03458
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Comparison of Halo Model and Simulation Predictions for Projected-Field Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Cross-Correlations
Rodriguez, Michael Jacob
Kusiak, Aleksandra
Pandey, Shivam
Hill, J. Colin
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
The kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is a powerful probe of gas physics and large-scale structure (LSS) in our universe. We consider the "projected-field" kSZ estimator, which involves cross-correlating a foreground-cleaned, filtered, squared CMB temperature map with an LSS tracer, and requires no individual tracer redshifts. We compare $\verb|class_sz|$ halo model calculations of projected-field kSZ cross-correlations with measurements of these signals from the Websky numerical simulations. We cross-correlate halo density maps from Websky with various CMB secondary signals. We first validate our halo model by comparing its predictions for thermal SZ (tSZ) and patchy screening ($τ$) cross-correlations to measurements of these signals from Websky. We consider three different halo redshift ranges in our comparisons. We also construct our own kSZ, tSZ, and $τ$ maps to validate the form of the relevant profiles. Following the tSZ and $τ$ validation, we compare projected-field kSZ calculations between the halo model and the simulations. We use filters constructed for $\textit{Planck}$ and the Simons Observatory (SO) to assess the accuracy of the halo-model kSZ predictions for experiments of differing sensitivity. Overall, we find good agreement, particularly at $\textit{Planck}$ sensitivity. However, we find an $\approx$ 20$\%$ difference between our halo model and the simulations for SO, which significantly exceeds the predicted error bars. We note that our halo model includes only the dominant expected term in the projected-field kSZ signal; the magnitude of the difference between our model and the simulations is consistent with previous predictions for terms arising from other contractions in the theory calculation. These terms will need to be included to obtain unbiased inference from upcoming projected-field kSZ measurements.
title Comparison of Halo Model and Simulation Predictions for Projected-Field Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Cross-Correlations
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.03458