Evidence of Lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background by Dark Matter Halos
Hilton, Matt; Hasselfield, Matthew; Bond, J. Richard; Crichton, Devin; Datta, Rahul; Devlin, Mark J.; Dunkley, Joanna; Dünner, Rolando; Hincks, Adam D.; Hughes, John P.; Kosowsky, Arthur; Louis, Thibaut; McMahon, Jeff; Moodley, Kavilan; Nati, Federico; Newburgh, Laura; Niemack, Michael D.; Page, Lyman A.; Partridge, Bruce; Sievers, Jon; Spergel, David N.; Staggs, Suzanne T.; Wollack, Edward J.; Sherwin, Blake D.; Naess, Sigurd; Calabrese, Erminia; Sehgal, Neelima; Hill, J. Colin; Van Engelen, Alexander; Hlozek, Renée; Allison, Rupert; Hajian, Amir; Battaglia, Nick; Schmitt, Benjamin; Grace, Emily; Lungu, Marius; Coughlin, Kevin; Madhavacheril, Mathew; Munson, Charles; Thornton, Robert; Ward, Jonathan T.; Caligiuri, Jerod; Fogarty, Kevin; Atacama Cosmology Telescope Collaboration
United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Chile, South Africa, Italy
Abstract
We present evidence of the gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background by 1013 solar mass dark matter halos. Lensing convergence maps from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter (ACTPol) are stacked at the positions of around 12 000 optically selected CMASS galaxies from the SDSS-III/BOSS survey. The mean lensing signal is consistent with simulated dark matter halo profiles and is favored over a null signal at 3.2 σ significance. This result demonstrates the potential of microwave background lensing to probe the dark matter distribution in galaxy group and galaxy cluster halos.