Cosmology from Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Galaxy Clusters Detected with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope

Neelima Sehgal

February 03, 2011

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Abstract: For the first time microwave surveys such as the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and the South Pole Telescope (SPT) are detecting galaxy clusters through the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect. Counts of galaxy clusters as a function of mass and redshift provide a powerful probe of structure growth and cosmology. I will discuss constraints on the matter power spectrum amplitude, sigma_8, and dark energy equation of state, w, from SZ cluster counts detected with ACT.