As the largest nearly virialized objects that will ever form in our dark-energy-dominated Universe, galaxy clusters are important cosmological probes and universally representative astrophysical labs. They also serve as hosts to roughly half the galaxies in the Universe located at z < 2. Yet, perhaps because cosmological dimming limits the utility of X-ray observations, studies at high-z have so far been limited, and the effects of environment on galaxy evolution at z > 1 are often downplayed or ignored. Meanwhile, low-resolution (1-10 arcminute) surveys exploiting the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect -- a distortion of the CMB that probes the thermal energy of the warm/hot intra-cluster medium (ICM) -- have been detecting high-z clusters, and have been used to (partially) characterize them. A salient feature of the SZ effect is its redshift-independent surface brightness.
Through the development of higher resolution and higher sensitivity mm/submm telescopes, the past decade has brought fantastic advances in using the SZ effect as a tool for astrophysics. Here I will present a few of these advances and discuss possible new directions in the era of AtLAST, including extensions to higher redshifts and lower mass systems such as imaging the CGM of massive galaxies.
Please join via Zoom at
https://uio.zoom.us/j/2081989350?pwd=bkE3b0w4ejYzaUlWWnZMcndVVUY5Zz09
Meeting ID: 208 198 9350
Passcode: mHxvgf45
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