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1. Component-separated, CIB-cleaned thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich maps from Planck PR4 data with a flexible public needlet ILC pipeline

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.023528  

   McCarthy, Fiona; Hill, J Colin (January 2024, Physical Review D)

   We use the full-mission Planck PR4 data to construct maps of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (Compton-y parameter) in our Universe. To do so, we implement a custom needlet internal linear combination (NILC) pipeline in a Python package, PYILC, which we make publicly available. We publicly release our Compton-y maps, which we construct using various constrained ILC ("deprojection") options in order to minimize contamination from the cosmic infrared background (CIB) in the reconstructed signal. In particular, we use a moment-based deprojection that minimizes sensitivity to the assumed frequency dependence of the CIB. Our code PYILC performs needlet or harmonic ILC on mm-wave sky maps in a flexible manner, with options to deproject various components on all or some scales. We validate our maps and compare them to the official Planck 2015 y map, finding that we obtain consistent results on large scales and 10-20% lower noise on small scales. We expect that these maps will be useful for many auto- and cross-correlation analyses; in a companion paper, we use them to measure the tSZ—CMB lensing cross-correlation. We anticipate that PYILC will be useful both for data analysis and for pipeline validation on simulations to understand the propagation of foreground components through a full NILC pipeline. 

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2. The Design and Integrated Performance of SPT-3G

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ac374f  

   Sobrin, J. A.; Anderson, A. J.; Bender, A. N.; Benson, B. A.; Dutcher, D.; Foster, A.; Goeckner-Wald, N.; Montgomery, J.; Nadolski, A.; Rahlin, A.; et al (February 2022, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series)

   Abstract SPT-3G is the third survey receiver operating on the South Pole Telescope dedicated to high-resolution observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Sensitive measurements of the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the CMB provide a powerful data set for constraining cosmology. Additionally, CMB surveys with arcminute-scale resolution are capable of detecting galaxy clusters, millimeter-wave bright galaxies, and a variety of transient phenomena. The SPT-3G instrument provides a significant improvement in mapping speed over its predecessors, SPT-SZ and SPTpol. The broadband optics design of the instrument achieves a 430 mm diameter image plane across observing bands of 95, 150, and 220 GHz, with 1.2′ FWHM beam response at 150 GHz. In the receiver, this image plane is populated with 2690 dual-polarization, trichroic pixels (∼16,000 detectors) read out using a 68× digital frequency-domain multiplexing readout system. In 2018, SPT-3G began a multiyear survey of 1500 deg 2 of the southern sky. We summarize the unique optical, cryogenic, detector, and readout technologies employed in SPT-3G, and we report on the integrated performance of the instrument. 

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3. Asteroid Measurements at Millimeter Wavelengths with the South Pole Telescope

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac89ec  

   Chichura, P. M.; Foster, A.; Patel, C.; Ossa-Jaen, N.; Ade, P. A.; Ahmed, Z.; Anderson, A. J.; Archipley, M.; Austermann, J. E.; Avva, J. S.; et al (September 2022, The Astrophysical Journal)

   Abstract We present the first measurements of asteroids in millimeter wavelength data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT), which is used primarily to study the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We analyze maps of two ∼270 deg 2 sky regions near the ecliptic plane, each observed with the SPTpol camera ∼100 times over 1 month. We subtract the mean of all maps of a given field, removing static sky signal, and then average the mean-subtracted maps at known asteroid locations. We detect three asteroids—(324) Bamberga, (13) Egeria, and (22) Kalliope—with signal-to-noise ratios (S/N) of 11.2, 10.4, and 6.1, respectively, at 2.0 mm (150 GHz); we also detect (324) Bamberga with an S/N of 4.1 at 3.2 mm (95 GHz). We place constraints on these asteroids’ effective emissivities, brightness temperatures, and light-curve modulation amplitude. Our flux density measurements of (324) Bamberga and (13) Egeria roughly agree with predictions, while our measurements of (22) Kalliope suggest lower flux, corresponding to effective emissivities of 0.64 ± 0.11 at 2.0 and < 0.47 at 3.2 mm. We predict the asteroids detectable in other SPT data sets and find good agreement with detections of (772) Tanete and (1093) Freda in recent data from the SPT-3G camera, which has ∼10× the mapping speed of SPTpol. This work is the first focused analysis of asteroids in data from CMB surveys, and it demonstrates we can repurpose historic and future data sets for asteroid studies. Future SPT measurements can help constrain the distribution of surface properties over a larger asteroid population. 

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4. Four-year Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) Observations: On-sky Receiver Performance at 40, 90, 150, and 220 GHz Frequency Bands

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac397c  

   Dahal, Sumit; Appel, John W.; Datta, Rahul; Brewer, Michael K.; Ali, Aamir; Bennett, Charles L.; Bustos, Ricardo; Chan, Manwei; Chuss, David T.; Cleary, Joseph; et al (February 2022, The Astrophysical Journal)

   Abstract The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) observes the polarized cosmic microwave background (CMB) over the angular scales of 1° ≲ θ ≤ 90° with the aim of characterizing primordial gravitational waves and cosmic reionization. We report on the on-sky performance of the CLASS Q -band (40 GHz), W -band (90 GHz), and dichroic G -band (150/220 GHz) receivers that have been operational at the CLASS site in the Atacama desert since 2016 June, 2018 May, and 2019 September, respectively. We show that the noise-equivalent power measured by the detectors matches the expected noise model based on on-sky optical loading and lab-measured detector parameters. Using Moon, Venus, and Jupiter observations, we obtain power to antenna temperature calibrations and optical efficiencies for the telescopes. From the CMB survey data, we compute instantaneous array noise-equivalent-temperature sensitivities of 22, 19, 23, and 71 μ K cmb s for the 40, 90, 150, and 220 GHz frequency bands, respectively. These noise temperatures refer to white noise amplitudes, which contribute to sky maps at all angular scales. Future papers will assess additional noise sources impacting larger angular scales. 

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5. Shocks in the stacked Sunyaev-Zel’dovich profiles of clusters II: Measurements from SPT-SZ +  Planck Compton- y map

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac1376  

   Anbajagane, D; Chang, C; Jain, B; Adhikari, S; Baxter, E J; Benson, B A; Bleem, L E; Bocquet, S; Calzadilla, M S; Carlstrom, J E; et al (June 2022, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   ABSTRACT We search for the signature of cosmological shocks in stacked gas pressure profiles of galaxy clusters using data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT). Specifically, we stack the latest Compton-y maps from the 2500 deg2 SPT-SZ survey on the locations of clusters identified in that same data set. The sample contains 516 clusters with mean mass $$\langle M_{\rm 200m}\rangle = 10^{14.9} \, {\rm M}_\odot$$ and redshift 〈z〉 = 0.55. We analyse in parallel a set of zoom-in hydrodynamical simulations from the three hundred project. The SPT-SZ data show two features: (i) a pressure deficit at R/R200m = 1.08 ± 0.09, measured at 3.1σ significance and not observed in the simulations, and; (ii) a sharp decrease in pressure at R/R200m = 4.58 ± 1.24 at 2.0σ significance. The pressure deficit is qualitatively consistent with a shock-induced thermal non-equilibrium between electrons and ions, and the second feature is consistent with accretion shocks seen in previous studies. We split the cluster sample by redshift and mass, and find both features exist in all cases. There are also no significant differences in features along and across the cluster major axis, whose orientation roughly points towards filamentary structure. As a consistency test, we also analyse clusters from the Planck and Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter surveys and find quantitatively similar features in the pressure profiles. Finally, we compare the accretion shock radius ($$R_{\rm sh,\, acc}$$) with existing measurements of the splashback radius (Rsp) for SPT-SZ and constrain the lower limit of the ratio, $$R_{\rm sh,\, acc}/R_{\rm sp}\gt 2.16 \pm 0.59$$. 

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