Cosmology with the Secondary Anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background

Measurements of the primary anisotropies in the CMB have been the backbone of modern precision cosmology. Recently, high resolution CMB measurements from experiments, such as the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the South Pole Telescope, and the Planck satellite are probing scales where the secondary anisotropies dominate over the primary. I will focus on the secondary anisotropies caused by the thermal and kinetic Sunyaev Zel’dovich effects. Our ability to obtain cosmological information from these secondaries is limited by our theoretical understanding of the baryons in the large-scale structure between us and the primary CMB. I will present numerical simulations that model these baryons and attempt to constrain various cosmological parameters. Additionally, I will discuss the wealth of astrophysical large-scale structure information (in particular galaxy cluster astrophysics) that is interconnected with these secondaries.

Host: Bryce Croll