Sunyaev-Zel'dovich polarization simulation

Compton scattering of cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons on galaxy cluster electrons produces a linear polarization, which contains some information on the local quadrupole at the cluster location. We use N-body simulations to create, for the first time, maps of this polarization signal. We then look at the different properties of the polarization with respect to the cluster position and redshift. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.