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The Sunyaev-Zeldovich Eect

Kevin MacDermid December 14, 2006

Introduction

People love explosions. For this reason alone it is no surprise that the current model for the beginning of the universe starts with a bang, like a Hollywood movie, but much much bigger. This model is the well known Big Bang Cosmology, where the universe is said to be expanding due to an explosion some 15 billion years ago. This begs some immediate questions, such as when exactly did the big bang occur, how much total mass is there in the universe, and will it continue to accelerate, eventually slow to a stop, or even come back together in a Big Crunch. To answer these questions several parameters, such as the total mass in the universe and the Hubble constant, must be determined. Unfortunately, having but one viewpoint, on one planet, in one solar system, in one galaxy has not made this a simple task. Many methods have been used to try to determine some of these parameters, most consisting of tracking so called standard candles such as variable stars and supernovae to estimate distances; however, dierent methods provide dierent answers. Part of the problem is that the radiation from a luminous body will drop o as the square of the distance, meaning that a celestial object twice as far away will be a four times more dicult to see. In 1980, the Russian physicists Sunyaev and Zeldovich 1 proposed that is may be possible to detect galaxy clusters by observing small uctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). The CMB will be further explained in the following section, for now let me simple state that the CMB is truly background radiation, in that it must pass through all space in a given direction before reaching the Earth. As such, it will pass through all intervening objects which is of particular interest for the most massive stellar objects, clusters of galaxies, gas between the galaxies will tend to increase the energy of the CMB photons through inverse Compton scattering, a process which is now known as the Sunyaev Zeldovich (SZ) eect.
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This one of several Roman alphabet spellings of these two names, others include Siuniaev and Zeldovich.

As the SZ eect relies on one of the major physical processes coupling matter and energy, as will be discussed shortly, it provides a strong cosmological probe. It can and has been used to measure the properties of gas in galaxy clusters as well as the motion of these clusters and thus the evolution of the universe as a whole. Here I will attempt to present an overview of the reasons for studying the SZ eect, followed by an explanation of the physics. I will close with some of the methods of detection, and their respective diculties.

The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

A logical place to begin is a discussion of the cosmic background radiation (CMB) itself. As mentioned in the previous section, the CMB is the light radiated by the surface of last scattering. That is, it was the rst light to radiate freely as the universe became transparent to electromagnetic waves. This occurred when the universe had expanded enough to cool to about 3000K. Earlier than this, matter and radiation remained in thermal contact, and thus equilibrium, because of the abundance of free electrons for scattering. At this temperature, however, matter became neutral, the number of free electrons decreased signicantly, and radiation became decoupled from matter. As such, most of the photons that now make up the CMB were scattered by electrons for the last time, which is why it is often called the sphere of last scattering or red-shift of last scattering [6]. As an aside, this decoupling of photons and electrons led to a drop in the length scale necessary for gravitational collapse, allowing the uctuations present in mass density that had previously been stabilized by the radiation eld to begin to fall together, becoming the large-scale objects visible today. The CMB is perhaps the best cosmological probe known at present. First discovered over thirty years ago it has been the strongest evidence for the ination model of the universe due to its uniformity, which suggests thermal contact between all points at some time in the past. In fact, its spectrum is characterized by a single temperature, Trad 2.7K which implies a specic intensity of I = 2h 3 h/kB Trad (e 1)1 . c2 (1)

Corresponding to a peak brightness Imax 3.7W,2 Hz 1 sr1 at max 160GHz, a photon density n 4 108 photons m3 , a mass density of pgamma 5 1031 kg m3 that is much less then the critical density to close the universe of crit =
2 3H0 = 1.88 1026 h2 kgm3 . o 8G

where Ho is the Hubble constant and ho = Ho /100kms1 M pc1 is the dimensionless version, has been narrowed down to 0.5 ho 0.8 [5]. 2

Cosmological data is encoded in the CMB in two ways. First, the anisotropies present in the sphere of last scattering are thought to be the blue print of the universe, as the density uctuations led to gravitational collapse into the current state of the universe. Secondly, there is a great deal of data present in the CMB brightness and spectrum due to matter interaction. The SZ eect is an example of such a matter interaction.

Physics of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich eect

Were the CMB undisturbed since decoupling of radiation it would a simple matter to extract information regarding ination and the epoch of last scattering, however, there would be no imprint, and thus no information, about present day structures. On the other hand, if the reverse were true then its interactions with matter today would most likely have overwritten any available information from the early universe. In reality, the CMB lies somewhere between these two possibilities, its spectrum and intensity are aected directly by high temperature stars and clusters as well as gravitationally lensed by any massive object, or combination thereof. The thermal SZ eect, of which the distinction will be made later, is much more intense than gravitation lensing, though in measurements lensing must be accounted for [1]. The basic physics of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich eect are fairly simple. Clusters of galaxies have masses that exceed 31014 M with eective gravitational radii, Ref f , on the order of mega-parsecs. For a gas in hydrostatic equilibrium with its gravitation potential the virial theorem states that the average kinetic energy will be half the average potential or kB Te GM mp 7(M/3 1014 M )(Ref f /M pc)1 keV. 2Ref f (2)

which leads to thermal emission in the X-ray spectrum composed of bremsstrahlung and line radiation. Around a quarter of the mass of these galaxy clusters are ionized intracluster gas [2]. As such there is an extremely high number of free electrons available to scatter CMB photons passing through. The details of this interaction are covered in Ribicki and Lightman, and will be discussed further in the next section but let me now mention simply that for low energies the cross-section is the Thomson scattering cross section, T , leading to an optical depth e = ne T Ref f 102 . Due to the low energy of the CMB photons there is a greater probability of up-scattering, as will be shown in the next section. Furthermore, an average scatter produces a change in mean photon energy ( /) (kB Te /me c2 ) 102 . Overall then, the SZ eect leads to a change in brightness of about one part in 104 , which is possible, though challenging, to measure. 3

3.1

Single Photon-Electron Scattering

To begin with, recall that Compton scattering describes the interaction between photons and unbound electrons. For electrons at rest, single photon electron scattering simply follows the well known Compton energy formula,
f

1+

mc2

(1 cos )

(3)

Where,

is the nal photon energy,

the initial and is the scattering angle.

The SZ eect is, in fact, simply a special case of Compton scattering where the photon is from the CMB and the electron belongs to the intracluster gas. In this situation the electrons are much hotter, or higher energy, than the incident radiation and the Compton scatter will tend to increase the photon energy, which is why this is often called inverse Compton scattering. This process is discussed in section seven of Ribicki and Lightman, here an outline will be given [7]. Basically, the Lorenz transforms between the lab and rest frame introduce an increase in photon energy on the order of 2 , for relativistic electrons with 2 1 h/mc2 , that still satisfy the Thomson scattering condition mc2 . While this process can greatly increase the energy of a photon it should be noted that it will be partially countered by several terms from the quantum mechanical treatment of this scattering. The exact equation is called the Klein-Nishina formula, and is beyond the scope of this paper. For the clusters of galaxies that cause the SZ eect, the electrons can be considered mildly relativistic, me c2 . This greatly simplies the physics involved, though more careful calculations requires relaxing this assumption, see, for example Bernstien, 1990 [9]. So, while these are generally called inverse Compton, they could more accurately be called Thomson scattering. The Thomson cross section can accurately be used in this limit, 1 2 dT = r0 (1 + cos2 ) d 2 (4)

where r0 is the electron radius and the angle the photon is deected by the scattering. If the geometry is similar to gure 1, then the probability of scattering with angle is p()d = 2 4 (1 )3 and the probability of scattering to angle is, ( ; ) = 3 8 1 1 + 2 2 + (1 2 )(1 2 ) d . 2 4 (6)
1

(5)

This change in direction causes the scattered photon to appear at frequency = (1 + )(1 )1 , where = cos . (7)

Figure 1: The geometry of scattering in the rest frame of the electron before the interaction. Typically, the scattering is expressed in terms of the logarithmic frequency shift, s = log( /). Which, when combined with the previous several equations leads to a probability of scattering causing a frequency shift s from an electron with speed c is P (s; ) = 3 16 4
2 1

(1 + ) 1 + 2 2 + 1/2(1 2 )(1 2 ) (1 )3 d

(8)

Where the integral is performed over real angles so that, for up-scattering s > 0, 1 = 1 es (1 + ) 2 = 1 and for down-scattering (s < 0) 1 = 1 2 = 1 es (1 ) . (11) (12) (9) (10)

This integration can be done numerically, see Figure 2 below.

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Beta Beta Beta Beta

= 0.5 = 0.1 = 0.3 = 0.7

P(s;B)

0 -.5 0 0.5 1 1.5

Figure 2: The scattering probabilities function for several betas. Note that the function becomes increasingly asymmetric and broader as increases.

3.2

Scattering of the CMB by an Electron Population

Above, the physics for a single photon scattering are described. This can be broadened to an electron population simply by averaging over the distribution of the electrons. The probability distribution can be given by,
1

P1 (s) =
lim

pe ()P (s; )d,

(13)

where pe () is the electron distribution and lim is the minimum beta capable of causing a frequency shift s, e|s| 1 lim = |s| . e +1 Of course, this is true only if the electron distribution does not extend to Lorenz factors outside the limit of the Thomson approximation. In the case of galaxy clusters typical electron temperatures can be as high as 15 keV (1.8 108 K) but the corresponding Lorenz factors will still be small, and the Thomson approximation will hold. Furthermore, in the case of a galaxy cluster the electron velocities can be taken to be thermal, so they follow a relativistic Maxwell distribution,
5 2 exp( )d pe ()d = , 1 K2 ( )

(14)

where is the dimensionless electron temperature = kB Te me c2 .

The above integral, given by equation 13, can be performed numerically, the results for kB Te = 5.1 and 15.3keV is shown in gure 3. Notice that the distribution of scattered photon frequencies is asymmetric, with a stronger up-scattering tail (s > 1) than downscattering region. Thus the eect is a mean frequency increase [4]. The next step is to use the frequency shift for single scattering that we have just calculated on the spectrum of the CMB. This amounts to nding the intensity over the frequency range as well as including the possibility of multiple scattering. The detailed calculation will not be included here, though it can be found in Birkinshaw, the result is, I() = 2h e c2

P1 (s)ds

3 0

eh0 /kB Trad

3 eh/kB Trad 1

(15)

where 0 is our original frequency and the nal. Note that this intensity change is redshift independent, as it depends only on the conditions of the scattering gas. It is this fact that makes the SZ so useful for cosmology. 7

Figure 3: Plots of the scattering kernel, equation 13. The solid line is as calculated by Rephaeli (1995a) [11]. The dotted line is as calculated by Sunyaev 1980 [12]

3.3

The Kompaneets approximation

For completeness, a brief mention will be made here of the Kompaneets approximation as it has been used for most of the work on the SZ eect. The Kompaneets approximation basically amounts to taking the non-relativistic limit, which simplies the scattering considerably leading to a spectral change of I(x) = x3 n(x)I0 , where n is the spectral change caused by scattering n = xy and x =
h kB Te .

(16)

ex (xcoth(x/2) 4), (ex 1)2


3

(17)

Also, y =

kB Te ct , me c2 e

where e = (ne T )1 , is a dimensionless measure of time


2h c2 kB Trad h

spent in the electron distribution, and I0 = see Kompaneets, 1957.

. For the details of this derivation

The Kompaneets approximation has three main advantages. First, the spectrum of the SZ eect is given by a simple analytical function. Second, the location of the maxima, minima and zeroes become independent of Te . And, nally, the amplitude of the intensity changes only with the Compton y parameter, which itself is proportional only to the temperature and optical depth of the electron cloud. 8

A comparison of these two intensity functions, the full relativistic and the Kompaneets approximation is given in gure 4. Note that while it is possible to get closer to the relativistic equation by taking further orders of this approximation relies on the assumptions that the cluster is optically thin and that the electron distribution function is that of a single temperature gas. In practice, if results of greater than one percent accuracy are needed the full relativistic expression must be used.

Figure 4: The spectral deformation caused by the SZ eect. The Kompaneets approximation is shown as a dotted line. The left is for electrons at kB Te = 5.1keV and the right is for electrons at kB Te = 15.3keV

Secondary SZ eects

What has been described above is more specically called the thermal SZ eect. There are two important secondary eects related directly to thermal SZ. Each leads to dierent and could, at least theoretically, be detected.

4.1

The non-thermal SZ eect

The rst is the not so imaginatively named non-thermal SZ eect. This is simply the SZ eect produced by a non-thermally distributed group of electrons. Recall that equation 13

allowed any distribution of electrons, and it is possible that a suciently dense relativistic electron cloud could produce a similar SZ eect. The math involved in calculations becomes quite involved, as the full relativistic treatment is necessary. Here only qualitative properties will be discussed, see Birkinshaw for more detail. The optical depth to inverse Compton scattering depends on the low frequency limit of the structure being observed for high frequencies. As such, the non-thermal SZ eect can be thought of as a test of the minimum energy of electrons that produce radio radiation. Unfortunately, it is not easy to detect the SZ from non-thermal electron populations as there is a great deal of synchrotron radio emission. At low frequencies the synchrotron emission will easily dominate over the non-thermal SZ. At high radio frequencies, however, there is more chance that the SZ eect could be detected, but there are still diculties separating the SZ from the atter section of the synchrotron radiation. A further diculty is that radio emitters are expected to be strongly in-homogeneous, so single dish measurements average over a variety of dierent radio source structures. This implies that the data taken might actually be produced by small variations in the electron energy distribution function. To get accurate results observations must be made with angular resolution comparable with the small-scale structures, which will prove dicult.

4.2

The Kinematic SZ eect

The kinematic SZ eect is caused by the movement of the galaxy cluster responsible for thermal or non-thermal SZ relative to the Hubble ow. Thus, in the reference frame of the scattering gas the microwave background will appear anisotropic which inverse Compton will cause to become more isotropic again. Of course, in so doing it causes the radiation eld at the observer to become less isotropic, but instead to show a structure toward the scattering atmosphere with amplitude proportional to e vz /c, where vz is the peculiar velocity along the line of sight [8] The kinematic eect can be a problem when accurate measurements of the thermal SZ are attempted; however, it also provides further information about the cluster itself. Of course, to be capable of this it is necessary to separate the thermal and kinematic eects. This can be accomplished using their dierent spectral properties. The derivation of the kinematic SZ eect can be found in Phillips 1995. As a basic outline, the assumption made is that both the kinematic and the thermal eects are small, allowing cross terms to be omitted. It should be noted that this approximation is not correct for the non-thermal eect, which will not be discussed here. With this assumption in place

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the occupation number in a given frame can be found to be n = (exp(x1 z (1 z 1 )) 1)1 (18)

1 where x1 = khT1 is the dimensionless frequency of the photons in the frame of the scattering B medium. Using this with the typical radiative transfer equation it is possible to derive an equation for the scattered radiation intensity, the results are,

I = e I0 for the intensity and

x4 ex , (ex 1)2 x2 ex , (ex 1)2

(19)

TB = e Trad

(20)

for the brightness temperature. This amounts to a decrease in the radiation temperature. 23 Jul 2002 15:7 AR AR166-AA40-16.tex AR166-AA40-16.sgm LaTeX2e(2002/01/18) P1: IBD While the kinematic SZ eect is much smaller than the thermal eect at low frequencies it can be detected at higher frequencies due to the dierence between the two spectra. In fact, using the Kompaneets approximation it is possible to show that the kinematic eect 648 peaks (in intensityCARLSTROM HOLDER thermal eect is null, see Figure 5 change) where the REESE

Annu. Rev. Astro. Astrophys. 2002.40:643-680. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by MCGILL UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES on 12/09/06. For personal use only.

Figure 5: Spectral distortion of CMBThe leftto Sunyaev-Zeldovich the right panel left panel the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE). due panel shows the intensity and eect. The shows the while Jeans brightness temperature. The thick solid line is the thermal SZE solid shows the intensity Rayleigh the right shows the brightness temperature. The and line is the thermal SZ the dashed line is thekinetic SZE. For reference the 2.7 K thermal spectrum for the CMB eect, while the dashed line represents the kinematic eect [10] Thus to be accurate the thermal SZ eect must be carefully accounted for. Also, although this technique only provides the peculiar velocity alongand small corrections are required components electron velocities are becoming relativistic, the line of sight the other for using the specic the SZE. There has been considerable theoretical can be determinedaccurate interpretation of intensity changes caused by gravitational lensing. work that includes relativistic dipole-like term (Wright 1979; the SZ eect from the Basically this amounts to a very slight corrections to the SZEapparent in Fabbri 1981;
Rephaeli 1995; Rephaeli & Yankovitch 1997; Stebbins 1997; Itoh et al. 1998; Challinor & Lasenby 1998, 1999; Sazonov & Sunyaev 1998a,b; Nozawa et al. 1998b; Molnar & Birkinshaw 1999; 11 Dolgov et al. 2001). All of these derivations agree for kBTe 15 keV, appropriate for galaxy clusters. For a massive cluster with kBTe 10 keV (kBTe/mec2 0.02), the relativistic corrections to the SZE are on the order of a few percent in the RJ portion of the spectrum but can be substantial near the null of the thermal effect. Convenient analytical approximations to fth order in kBTe/mec2 are presented in Itoh et al. (1998). Particularly relevant for nding clusters with an SZE survey is the integrated SZE signal. Because the SZE signal is the integrated pressure, integrating over the solid angle of the cluster provides a sum of all of the electrons in the cluster weighted by temperature. This provides a relatively clean measure of the total thermal energy of the cluster. Integrating the SZE over the solid angle of the
intensity scaled by 0.0005 is shown by the dotted line in the left panel. The cluster properties used to calculate the spectra are an electron temperature of 10 keV, a Compton y parameter observationsand a peculiar velocity of 500 km s1. (218 GHz) though for these observations of 104, are possible near x = 2.83

Figure 2 Spectral distortion of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation due to

movement of the mass. This term can be an order of magnitude smaller than the kinematic SZ eect, and thus would not be easy to measure. Further reading on the physics behind this can be found in Rees & Sciama 1968 and Pyne & Birkinshaw 1993.

Applications of the Sunyaev Zeldovich Eect

Before proceeding the to the applications of the SZ eect a summary of the most important features of the thermal eect are in order. First, it is a slight spectral distortion, on the order of 1mK proportional to the cluster pressure along the line of sight. Second, and perhaps most importantly, it is independent of redshift. In fact, the SZ eect is proportional to the total thermal energy, and is only limited by the size of the cluster. This will be extremely important in the cosmology section to follow. As an quick aside, note that the existence of the SZ eect proves that the CMB is not a local eect inside our own galaxy. Though there was little debate about this it is obvious that the SZ can only function if the CMB passes through the cluster, thus it must be radiated from a higher red-shift. Of much greater interest however are the insights into galaxy cluster properties and cosmology as whole described in the following section.

5.1

Cosmology

The most exciting potential application of the SZ eect are the high red-shift surveys it allows. It is possible to scan a fairly large section of the sky and discover the locations of galaxy clusters by detecting slight changes in intensity. These clusters can then be used to trace the evolution of the universe through time up to red-shifts of about three. While being able to track the evolution of galaxy clusters is compelling on its own the data from these surveys, as well as supporting measurements possible once the location of the cluster is well-known, allows the determination of several cosmological parameters. For instance, the SZ eect allows an independent measurement of the Hubble constant, as the distance to a given cluster can be calculated by making use of the dierent density dependencies of the SZ eect and X-ray emission. Specically, the SZ eect depends on density to the rst power while X-ray emission has second order density dependence. While the calculation will not be given here (see Carlstrom, Holder, Reese [10]), it relies on one critical assumption, namely, that the scale of the cluster along the line of sight is directly related to the scale on the plane of the sky. Typically, spherical symmetry is assumed, and these are taken to be equal.

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Furthermore, since the thermal SZ eect relies directly on the line of sight cluster pressure, it will be proportional to the number of free electrons available in the cluster. As such, if the temperature of the cluster can be obtained by other means (such as spectroscopy), the gas fraction can be determined directly. This leads to an estimate of the total gravitating mass, by assuming hydrostatic equilibrium. The amount of gas present in clusters is vital as it allows a better estimate of the total mass of a cluster, thus placing constraints on the dark matter. Finally, the kinematic SZ eect is potentially a powerful cosmological tool as it provides the only way to measure the peculiar velocity at high red-shift. Unfortunately, it is a very weak eect making it extremely dicult to measure. Measurements should best be done at around 218 GHz, as this is the null of the thermal eect, however even here the CMB uctuations and background sources provide signicant noise. For further information on the cosmological implications of the SZ eect, see the annual review by Carlstrom, Holder and Reese [10].

Detection Techniques

Let us close with a discussion of the three methods used to detect the SZ eect complete with their respective strengths and weaknesses. Only an outline of the measurement procedure will be included here are there is little use reproducing data available in outer sources. In particular, see Birkinshaw 1999 [4] and Carlstrom et al. 2000 [13] for relatively recent reviews of the observations.

6.1

Single-Dish radiometer measurements

The rst method used to detect the SZ eect makes use of existing radio telescopes on which large periods of observing time are available. These telescopes tend to have beam-sizes of a few arcminutes at microwave frequencies, which is about the angular size of moderately distant clusters of galaxies. While relatively little customization is needed for this, making it relatively inexpensive, to make accurate measurements long observation times are needed. For example, to make a measurement with an accuracy of 10 K (brightness temperature) would take in excess of ve hours. The main problem encountered is emission from the Earths atmosphere, which varies with both space and time. To account for this telescopes will tend to use dierence measurements by quickly switching from one location on the sky to another. It is also possible to use

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what is called drift-scanning, in which the sky is allowed to drift through the beam of the telescope, and the average baseline is removed from the signal. Unfortunately, these dierencing schemes limit the range of red-shifts for which the telescope is useful. If the observations are of a cluster of galaxies at low red-shift, then the angular size of the clusters SZ eects may be comparable to the beam switching angle, thus reducing the observable signal. Alternatively, if the cluster is at high red-shift, then its angular size in the SZ eects may be smaller than the telescope is able to measure (its FWHM), so that beam dilution reduces the signal. Another problem encountered is the diculty relating the measured signal from the radiometer to the brightness temperature of the SZ eect. That is, there is a problem of calibration. Generally, the absolute calibration of the telescope will be tied to the observation of planets, which can lead to a source of error.

6.2

Bolometric methods

Bolometric systems are quite similar to the radiometer measurements described in the previous section, with greatly increased sensitivity. Furthermore, bolometric measurements are of interest as they are sensitive outside the Rayleigh-Jeans part of the spectrum, thus providing the possibility of separating the thermal and kinematic SZ eects. Bolometers themselves are simply small absorbers connected to a heat sink through a thin insulating link. When incident radiation strikes the absorber it raises its temperature, which is then measured to extract the initial power. As each absorber is often on the order of millimeters, an array is needed to obtain useful data. A bolometer such as SCUBA has sensitivity at a wavelength of 850 m of 80 MJyHz 1/2 , with a 13-arcsec pixel size. A few hours of observation should suce to detect the thermal SZ eect at high sensitivity, this is considerably better than the radiometric measurements described earlier. However, a problem with this technique is the high sky brightness over which the observations must be made. This implies that telescopes on high, dry sites or balloon experiments are necessary for ecient observation. Also, as in radiometric work, there is the problem of calibrating the data into absolute temperature. Again, the calibration is typically made through reference to the brightness of planets, which limits the accuracy of intensity measurements to about 6 per cent. Including the error from the beam-pattern of the detectors, the bandpasses of the detector elements and the opacity of the atmosphere increase this to about 8 per cent.

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6.3

Interferometric methods

The two previous techniques are best suited for large-scale surveys searching for or examining galaxy clusters for only moderate angular resolutions. Radio interferometry, on the other hand, is a powerful method for making images of SZ eects. These images can mostly be used in comparison with X-ray emission images. Also radio interferometry operates dierently from the previous two, thus it suers from other systematic diculties and can provide an independent view. Radio interferometry is aptly named, it uses the correlation of signals from a pair of radio antennas. This correlation produces a response which is roughly proportional to a single Fourier component of the brightness of the source. Since radio interferometers are typically designed to maximize the angular resolution there is some maximum angular scale of structure that can be imaged by interferometers. The SZ eect for clusters of galaxies has angular scales of several arcminutes, which will not be visible using an interferometer. As such a radio interferometer has diculty detecting the SZ eect, so a smaller interferometer is needed. Using a smaller interferometer it should be noted that the eect of structures in the atmosphere are signicantly reduced. Emission from the atmosphere contributes to the total noise power entering the antennas which will not show up in the correlated data. So, a interferometers do not respond to constant atmospheric signals, the uniform component of the CMB, or any other form of constant emission. While the interferometric technique is very powerful it does suer from some new diculties of its own. First, the range of frequency may be highly restricted so that a map cannot truly be formed. Furthermore, one must be careful to avoid correlation errors, which can produce large and spurious signals. Further information on this can be seen in Partridge et al. 1987.

Conclusion

I have here tried to provide a concise overview of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich eect; however this is by no means an complete review on what has become a broad subject. For my part, I recommend the review by Birkinshaw that has been cited throughout this paper for further reading.

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References
[1] Loeb Abraham and Refregier, Alexandres. Eect of gravitational lensing on measurements of Sunyaev-Zeldovich eect Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 476, n 2, pt.2, 20 Feb. 1997, p L59-62 [2] White, D. A, Fabian, A. C Einstein Observatory evidence for the widespread baryon overdensity in clusters of galaxies Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. (UK). vol 273, 1. pp 72-84. March, 1995. [3] Zeldovich, Ia.B and Siuniaev, R. A. Intergalactic gas in galactic clusters, the microwave background radiation and cosmology Astrophysics and cosmic physics. (A8301838 01-90), pp. 9-65, Nov. 1982, [4] Birkinshaw, Mark. The Sunyaev-ZelDovich Eect Physics Reports, vol. 310, 2-3, p. 97-195, 1999. [5] Sandage, A.R., Tammann, G. In Critical Dialogs in Cosmology ed. Turok, N.; World Scientic [6] Dodelson, Scott. Cosmic Microwave Background: Past, Future, and Present. International Journal of Modern Physics, vol. 15, Suppl 1B. pp. 765-783, 2000. [7] George B. Rybicki and Alan P. Lightman Radiative Processes in Astrophysics Strauss GmbH, Morlenbach, Germany: Wiley-Vch, 2004. [8] Rephaeli, Y. and Lahav O. Peculiar cluster velocities from measurements of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich eect Astrophys. J. (USA). vol 372, 1. pp 21-4. May, 1991. [9] Jeremy Bernstein and Scott Dodelson Aspects of the Zeldovich-Sunyaev mechanism Physical Review D, vol. 41, n 2, Jan. 1990. [10] John E. Carlstrom, Gilbert P. Holder, and Erik D. Reese Cosmology with the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Eect Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophy. vol 40. p 643-80. 2002. [11] Rephaeli, Y. Comptonization of the cosmic microwave background: the SunyaevZeldovich eect Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophy. vol 33. p 541-79. 1995. [12] Sunyaev, R. A. and Zeldovich Y. Microwave background radiation as a probe of the contemporary structure and history of the universe Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophy. vol 18. p 537-560. 1980. [13] Carlstrom, J. E and Joy, M. and Holder, G and Holzapfel, W. and Laroque, S. and Mohr, J. and Reese, E. The Sunyaev-Zeldovich Eect Constructing the Universe with Clusters of Galaxies. 2000.

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