1999MNRAS.307..841C

We present the observed relation between ΔT_SZ, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature decrement due to the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect, and L, the X-ray luminosity of galaxy clusters. We discuss this relation in terms of the cluster properties, and show that the slope of the observed ΔT_SZ-L relation is in agreement with both the L-T_e relation based on numerical simulations and X-ray emission observations, and the M_gas-L relation based on observation. The slope of the ΔT_SZ-L relation is also consistent with the M_tot-L relation, where M_tot is the cluster total mass based on gravitational lensing observations. This agreement may be taken to imply a constant gas mass fraction within galaxy clusters, however, there are large uncertainties, dominated by observational errors, associated with these relations. Using the ΔT_SZ-L relation and the cluster X-ray luminosity function, we evaluate the local cluster contribution to arcmin-scale cosmic microwave background anisotropies. The Compton distortion y-parameter produced by galaxy clusters through the SZ effect is roughly two orders of magnitude lower than the current upper limit based on FIRAS observations.