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P. L. Gomez (CMU), C. Loken (CITA), C. Cantalupo, K. Romer (CMU), J. O. Burns (Missouri), J. Peterson (CMU)
Recently, it has become possible to obtain unprecedented high quality X-ray and Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect images of merging galaxy clusters. The comparison between these observations is allowing us to study in detail the physics of these evolving systems. Therefore, it is important to examine how the different effects of cluster mergers (e.g., shocks, gas heating, bulk flow motions) are probed by the X-ray and SZ effect observations. In order to do this, we have modeled SZ observations of our N-body/Hydro numerical simulations of merging clusters. We have analyzed different viewing geometries, merging epochs, and mass ratios of the interacting systems. Moreover, we have also modeled the CMB primary anisotropies and computed its effects on the analysis of the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. Finally, we present a comparison between our results and recent X-ray, SZ and weak lensing observations of the merging cluster Abell 3667.
AKR and PG acknowledge financial support from NASA LTSA grant NAG5-7926.