Searching for Systematics in Forward Modeling Sunyaev-Zeldovich Profiles

Abstract: The Sunyaev-Zeldovich thermal (tSZ) and kinetic (kSZ) effects can be used to constrain the thermodynamic properties of pressure and density, respectively, of galaxies and their surrounding regions. As SZ observations continue to improve, it is important to understand any modeling systematics when inferring properties from the data. Thus, a pipeline to forward model observed SZ profiles was developed called Mop-c-GT. Previous studies have used this repository to create modeled SZ profiles by selecting halos from the IllustrisTNG simulation and found significant differences between the simulated profiles and those recently measured by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. There are many uncertainties involved in modeling observed samples and in the forward modeling process, so in this study, we explore methods implemented in Mop-c-GT and in the selection of the simulated halos to test the effects on the resulting modeled profiles. After testing several methods within the forward modeling process and varying the halo selection from the simulation, we find minimal differences between the simulated tSZ profiles of the original calculation and the updated methods, indicating that the observations still pose a challenge for the numerical methods used to describe the astrophysics of these systems.