GBT17B-334

MUSTANG-2 Observations of an SZE selected sample of ACT Galaxy Clusters

Abstract

Surveys of galaxy clusters selected through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect (SZE) promise to be a competetive cosmological probe of the growth of structure. However, systematic concerns in relating observations to cluster mass have greatly limited their utility. We aim to understand the astrophysical origin of these systematics by proposing high resolution SZE follow up study of a mass-limited SZE selected sample of clusters to z>1. We request MUSTANG-2 observations of 12 SZE selected galaxy clusters found by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). This sample has been selected for high significance SZE detections above a redshift cut of z > 0.4, with the most distant cluster at z = 1.11. This sample also has independent mass estimates from X-ray and dynamical studies. The resulting observations will provide high-resolution (9") information which when combined with ACT data (1.4') will measure the contributions of the SZE signal over an broad range of physical scales (tens to hundreds of kiloparsecs). The resulting dataset will greatly enhance our understanding of the astrophysical processes which influence the SZE signal and, in doing so, improve the utility of SZE cluster surveys as cosmological probes by shedding light on the systematics that plague current results.

Investigators

Name	Institution
Charles Romero	Pennsylvania, University of; Virginia, University of; Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Sara Stanchfield	Pennsylvania, University of
Brian Mason	National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Tony Mroczkowski	European Southern Observatory; Institut de Ciències de l'Espai
Simon Dicker	Pennsylvania, University of
John Hughes	Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Jonathan Sievers	Toronto, University of; McGill University; Princeton University; KwaZulu-Natal, University of
Megan Gralla	Arizona, University of; Johns Hopkins University
Matthew Hasselfield	Princeton University
Matt Hilton	KwaZulu-Natal, University of
Erik Reese	Pennsylvania, University of; Moorpark College
Alexander Young	Pennsylvania, University of
Mark Devlin	Pennsylvania, University of
Nicholas Battaglia	Cornell University; Toronto, University of
Devin Crichton *	Johns Hopkins University
Tracy Clarke	Naval Research Laboratory
Toby Marriage	Johns Hopkins University

* indicates the PI