Superclustering with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and Dark Energy Survey. I. Evidence for Thermal Energy Anisotropy Using Oriented Stacking

M. Lokken , R. Hložek , A. Van Engelen , M. Madhavacheril , E. Baxter , J. Derose , C. Doux , S. Pandey , E. S. Rykoff , G. Stein , C. To , T. M. C. Abbott , S. Adhikari , M. Aguena , S. Allam , F. Andrade-Oliveira , J. Annis , N. Battaglia , G. M. Bernstein , E. Bertin (1) , J. R. Bond , D. Brooks , E. Calabrese , A. Carnero Rosell , M. Carrasco Kind , J. Carretero , R. Cawthon , A. Choi , M. Costanzi , M. Crocce , L. N. Da Costa , M. E. da Silva Pereira , J. De Vicente , S. Desai , J. P. Dietrich , P. Doel , J. Dunkley , S. Everett , A. E. Evrard , S. Ferraro , B. Flaugher , P. Fosalba , J. Frieman , P. A. Gallardo , J. García-Bellido , E. Gaztanaga , D. W. Gerdes , T. Giannantonio , D. Gruen , R. A. Gruendl , J. Gschwend , G. Gutierrez , J. C. Hill , M. Hilton , A. D. Hincks , S. R. Hinton , D. L. Hollowood , K. Honscheid , B. Hoyle , Z. Huang , J. P. Hughes , D. Huterer , B. Jain , D. J. James , T. Jeltema , K. Kuehn , M. Lima , M. A. G. Maia , J. L. Marshall , J. Mcmahon , P. Melchior , F. Menanteau , R. Miquel , J. J. Mohr , K. Moodley , R. Morgan , F. Nati , L. Page , R. L. C. Ogando , A. Palmese , F. Paz-Chinchón , A. A. Plazas Malagón , A. Pieres , A. K. Romer , E. Rozo , E. Sanchez , V. Scarpine , A. Schillaci , M. Schubnell , S. Serrano , I. Sevilla-Noarbe , E. Sheldon , T. Shin , C. Sifón , M. Smith , M. Soares-Santos , E. Suchyta , M. E. C. Swanson , G. Tarle , D. Thomas , D. L. Tucker , T. N. Varga , J. Weller , R. H. Wechsler , R. D. Wilkinson , E. J. Wollack , Z. Xu

1 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris

The cosmic web contains filamentary structure on a wide range of scales. On the largest scales, superclustering aligns multiple galaxy clusters along intercluster bridges, visible through their thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich signal in the cosmic microwave background. We demonstrate a new, flexible method to analyze the hot gas signal from multiscale extended structures. We use a Compton y-map from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) stacked on redMaPPer cluster positions from the optical Dark Energy Survey (DES). Cutout images from the y-map are oriented with large-scale structure information from DES galaxy data such that the superclustering signal is aligned before being overlaid. We find evidence of an extended quadrupole moment of the stacked y signal at the 3.5σ level, demonstrating that the large-scale thermal energy surrounding galaxy clusters is anisotropically distributed. We compare our ACT × DES results with the Buzzard simulations, finding broad agreement. Using simulations, we highlight the promise of this novel technique for constraining the evolution of anisotropic, non-Gaussian structure using future combinations of microwave and optical surveys.

Keywords: Cosmic web; Large-scale structure of the universe; Intergalactic filaments; Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect; Cosmology; Superclusters; Galaxy clusters; Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Astrophysics [astro-ph]

M. Lokken, R. Hložek, A. Van Engelen, M. Madhavacheril, E. Baxter, et al.. Superclustering with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and Dark Energy Survey. I. Evidence for Thermal Energy Anisotropy Using Oriented Stacking. The Astrophysical Journal, 2022, 933, ⟨10.3847/1538-4357/ac7043⟩. ⟨insu-03748248⟩