Testing Dark Matter Halo Models of Quasars with Thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect

Abstract

A statistical analysis of stacked Compton-y maps of quasar hosts with a median redshift of 1.5 using Millennium Simulation is performed to address two issues: one on the feedback energy from quasars and the other on testing dark matter halo models for quasar hosts. On the first, we find that at the resolution of FWHM = 10 arcmin obtained by Planck data, the observed thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) effect can be entirely accounted for and explained by the thermal energy of halos sourced by the gravitational collapse of halos, without a need to invoke additional, large energy sources, such as quasar or stellar feedback. Allowing for uncertainties of dust temperature in the calibration of observed Compton-y maps, the maximum additional feedback energy is ∼ 25% of that previously suggested. Second, we show that with an FWHM = 1 arcmin beam, tSZ measurements will provide a potentially powerful test of quasar-hosting dark matter halo models, limited only by possible observational systematic uncertainties, not by statistical ones, even in the presence of possible quasar feedback.