20–27 Mar 2026
Wild View Resorts
Africa/Gaborone timezone

Have we found all “Missing baryons” in the cosmic web?

23 Mar 2026, 16:00
15m
Wild View Resorts

Wild View Resorts

Plot 80 President Avenue, Kasane, Botswana
Online - Talk 1 Cosmology Science & Engineering

Speaker

Yin-Zhe Ma (Stellenbosch University)

Description

Previous studies of galaxy formation have shown that only 10 per cent of the cosmic baryons are in stars and galaxies, while 90 per cent of them are missing. In this talk, I will present three observational studies that coherently find significant evidences of the missing baryons. The first is the cross-correlation between the kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich maps from Planck with the linear reconstructed velocity field. The second measurement is the cross-correlation between the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect with gravitational lensing map and we detect the cross-correlation for 13 sigma with RCSLenS and Planck data. The third study is to stack the cosmic voids to have a direct detection of warm hot gas inside the voids. These detections coherently brings a picture of how baryons distribute in the cosmic web. But the question is, at what level we can say we have found all missing baryons? I will briefly describe the critical way to solve this problem, what new data (Simons Observatory and LSST) can bring to us.

Stream Science or Engineering

Primary author

Yin-Zhe Ma (Stellenbosch University)

Presentation materials

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