A measurement of secondary cosmic microwave background anisotropies from the 2500 square-degree SPT-SZ survey

E. M. George, C. L. Reichardt, K. A. Aird, B. A. Benson, L. E. Bleem, J. E. Carlstrom, C. L. Chang, H. M. Cho, T. M. Crawford, A. T. Crites, T. De Haan, M. A. Dobbs, J. Dudley, N. W. Halverson, N. L. Harrington, G. P. Holder, W. L. Holzapfel, Z. Hou, J. D. Hrubes, R. KeislerL. Knox, A. T. Lee, E. M. Leitch, M. Lueker, D. Luong-Van, J. J. Mcmahon, J. Mehl, S. S. Meyer, M. Millea, L. M. Mocanu, J. J. Mohr, T. E. Montroy, S. Padin, T. Plagge, C. Pryke, J. E. Ruhl, K. K. Schaffer, L. Shaw, E. Shirokoff, H. G. Spieler, Z. Staniszewski, A. A. Stark, K. T. Story, A. Van Engelen, K. Vanderlinde, J. D. Vieira, R. Williamson, O. Zahn

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

183 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present measurements of secondary cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies and cosmic infrared background (CIB) fluctuations using data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) covering the complete 2540 deg2SPT-SZ survey area. Data in the three SPT-SZ frequency bands centered at 95, 150, and 220 GHz, are used to produce six angular power spectra (three single-frequency auto-spectra and three cross-spectra) covering the multipole range 2000 < ℓ < 11,000 (angular scales 5′ ≳ θ ≳ 1′). These are the most precise measurements of the angular power spectra at ℓ > 2500 at these frequencies. The main contributors to the power spectra at these angular scales and frequencies are the primary CMB, CIB, thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects (tSZ and kSZ), and radio galaxies. We include a constraint on the tSZ power from a measurement of the tSZ bispectrum from 800 deg2 of the SPT-SZ survey. We measure the tSZ power at 143 GHz to be D3000 tSZ = 4.08-0.67 +0.58μK2 and the kSZ power to be D3000 kSZ = 2.9 ± 1.3 μK2. The data prefer positive kSZ power at 98.1% CL. We measure a correlation coefficient of ξ = 0.113-0.054 +0.057 between sources of tSZ and CIB power, with ξ < 0 disfavored at a confidence level of 99.0%. The constraint on kSZ power can be interpreted as an upper limit on the duration of reionization. When the post-reionization homogeneous kSZ signal is accounted for, we find an upper limit on the duration Δz < 5.4 at 95% CL.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number177
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume799
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 1 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Cosmic background radiation
  • Cosmology: observations
  • Dark ages, reionization, first stars
  • Diffuse radiation
  • Large-scale structure of universe

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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