arXiv:0809.5077v5 [astro-ph] 15 Jan 2009 Application of a Self-Similar Pressure Profile to Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect Data from Galaxy Clusters Tony Mroczkowski, 1,2,3 Max Bonamente, 4,5 John E. Carlstrom, 6,7,8,9 Thomas L. Culverhouse, 6,7 Christopher Greer, 6,7 David Hawkins, 10 Ryan Hennessy, 6,7 Marshall Joy, 5 James W. Lamb, 10 Erik M. Leitch, 6,7 Michael Loh, 6,9 Ben Maughan, 11,12 Daniel P. Marrone, 6,8,13 Amber Miller, 1,14,15 Stephen Muchovej, 2 Daisuke Nagai, 16,17 Clem Pryke, 6,7,8 Matthew Sharp, 6,9 and David Woody 10 ABSTRACT We investigate the utility of a new, self-similar pressure profile for fitting Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect observations of galaxy clusters. Current SZ imaging instruments—such as the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Array (SZA)—are capable of probing clusters over a large range in physical scale. A model is therefore required that can ac- curately describe a cluster’s pressure profile over a broad range of radii, from the core 1 Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 2 Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 3 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 4 Department of Physics, University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL 35899 5 Department of Space Science, VP62, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812 6 Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 7 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 8 Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 9 Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 10 Owens Valley Radio Observatory, California Institute of Technology, Big Pine, CA 93513 11 Department of Physics, University of Bristol, Tyndall Ave, Bristol BS8 1TL, UK. 12 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 13 Jansky Postdoctoral Fellow, National Radio Astronomy Observatory 14 Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 15 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow 16 Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520 17 Yale Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520