Measuring the Temperature of Extremely Hot Shock-Heated Gas in the Major Merger MACS J0717.5+3745 With Relativistic Corrections to the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect

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Main Authors: Vaughan, Benjamin J., Sayers, Jack, Spencer, Locke, Swidinksi, Nicholas, Wills, Ryan, Zemcov, Michael, Arthur, Derek, Butler, Victoria, Feder, Richard M., Klyde, Daniel, Lovisari, Lorenzo, Mantz, Adam, Silich, Emily M.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Vaughan, Benjamin J.
Sayers, Jack
Spencer, Locke
Swidinksi, Nicholas
Wills, Ryan
Zemcov, Michael
Arthur, Derek
Butler, Victoria
Feder, Richard M.
Klyde, Daniel
Lovisari, Lorenzo
Mantz, Adam
Silich, Emily M.
author_facet Vaughan, Benjamin J.
Sayers, Jack
Spencer, Locke
Swidinksi, Nicholas
Wills, Ryan
Zemcov, Michael
Arthur, Derek
Butler, Victoria
Feder, Richard M.
Klyde, Daniel
Lovisari, Lorenzo
Mantz, Adam
Silich, Emily M.
contents The conversion of gravitational potential to kinetic energy results in an intracluster medium (ICM) gas with a characteristic temperature near 10 keV in the most massive galaxy clusters. X-ray observations, primarily from Chandra and XMM-Newton, have revealed a wealth of information about the thermodynamics of this gas. However, two regimes remain difficult to study with current instruments: superheated gas well above 10 keV generated by shocks from major mergers, and distant systems strongly impacted by cosmological dimming. Relativistic corrections to the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (rSZe) produce a fractional spectral distortion in the cosmic microwave background at submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths that could offer a complementary probe of both high-temperature and high-redshift ICM gas. Here we describe multiband measurements of the rSZe, including observations from the Fourier Transform Spectrometer on the Herschel-SPIRE instrument, that constrain the ICM thermodynamics of the major merger MACS J0717.5+3745. Within the seven observed lines of sight, we find an average temperature of $T_{\mathrm{rSZe}}=15.1^{+3.8}_{-3.3}$ keV which is consistent with the values obtained from X-ray measurements of the same regions, with $T_{\mathrm{Chandra}}=18.0^{+1.1}_{-1.1}$ keV and $T_{\mathrm{XMM}}=13.9^{+0.9}_{-0.9}$ keV. This work demonstrates that the rSZe signal can be detected with moderate spectral resolution submillimeter data, while also establishing the utility of such measurements for probing superheated regions of the ICM.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_08837
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Measuring the Temperature of Extremely Hot Shock-Heated Gas in the Major Merger MACS J0717.5+3745 With Relativistic Corrections to the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect
Vaughan, Benjamin J.
Sayers, Jack
Spencer, Locke
Swidinksi, Nicholas
Wills, Ryan
Zemcov, Michael
Arthur, Derek
Butler, Victoria
Feder, Richard M.
Klyde, Daniel
Lovisari, Lorenzo
Mantz, Adam
Silich, Emily M.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
The conversion of gravitational potential to kinetic energy results in an intracluster medium (ICM) gas with a characteristic temperature near 10 keV in the most massive galaxy clusters. X-ray observations, primarily from Chandra and XMM-Newton, have revealed a wealth of information about the thermodynamics of this gas. However, two regimes remain difficult to study with current instruments: superheated gas well above 10 keV generated by shocks from major mergers, and distant systems strongly impacted by cosmological dimming. Relativistic corrections to the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (rSZe) produce a fractional spectral distortion in the cosmic microwave background at submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths that could offer a complementary probe of both high-temperature and high-redshift ICM gas. Here we describe multiband measurements of the rSZe, including observations from the Fourier Transform Spectrometer on the Herschel-SPIRE instrument, that constrain the ICM thermodynamics of the major merger MACS J0717.5+3745. Within the seven observed lines of sight, we find an average temperature of $T_{\mathrm{rSZe}}=15.1^{+3.8}_{-3.3}$ keV which is consistent with the values obtained from X-ray measurements of the same regions, with $T_{\mathrm{Chandra}}=18.0^{+1.1}_{-1.1}$ keV and $T_{\mathrm{XMM}}=13.9^{+0.9}_{-0.9}$ keV. This work demonstrates that the rSZe signal can be detected with moderate spectral resolution submillimeter data, while also establishing the utility of such measurements for probing superheated regions of the ICM.
title Measuring the Temperature of Extremely Hot Shock-Heated Gas in the Major Merger MACS J0717.5+3745 With Relativistic Corrections to the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08837