Cosmology from the kinetic polarized Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect

Understand

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons that scatter off free electrons in the large-scale structure induce a linear polarization pattern proportional to the remote CMB temperature quadrupole observed in the electrons' rest frame.

• The associated blackbody polarization anisotropies are known as the polarized Sunyaev Zel'dovich (pSZ) effect.
• Relativistic corrections to the remote quadrupole field give rise to a non-blackbody polarization anisotropy proportional to the square of the transverse peculiar velocity field; this is the kinetic polarized Sunyaev Zel'dovich (kpSZ) effect.
• In this paper, we forecast the ability of future CMB and galaxy surveys to detect the kpSZ effect, finding that a statistically significant detection is within the reach of planned experiments.