The intergalactic medium temperature and Compton y parameter

Abstract

(Abridged) The precision modeling of the thermal Sunyaev Zeldovich (SZ) effect and future high accuracy measurements will provide a powerful way to constrain the thermal history of the universe. In this paper, we combine high resolution adiabatic hydro simulations and analytical models to provide a precision modeling of the gas density weighted temperature $\bar{T}_g$ and the mean SZ Compton $y$ parameter. Simulation artifacts are quantified and corrected and our analytical model passes tests of various simulations and is able to predict $\bar{T}_g$ and $\bar{y}$ to several percent accuracy. For low matter density $\Lambda$CDM cosmology, the present $\bar{T}_g$ is $0.32 (\sigma_8/0.84)^{3.05-0.15\Omega_m}(\Omega_m/0.268)^{1.28-0.2\sigma_8} {\rm keV}$. The mean $y$ parameter is $2.6\times 10^{-6} (\sigma_8/0.84)^{4.1-2\Omega_m}(\Omega_m/0.268)^{1.28-0.2\sigma_8}$. The current upper limit of $y<1.5\times 10^{-5}$ measured by FIRAS has already ruled out combinations of high $\sigma_8\ga 1.1$ and high $\Omega_m\ga 0.5$.