Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect from quasar-driven blast waves

Quasar-driven winds are currently the best candidates for accounting for the pre-heating of the intergalactic medium in clusters. Such winds, occurring during early phases of the evolution of spheroidal galaxies, shock-heat the interstellar gas, thus inducing a detectable Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. We estimate the amplitude and the angular scale of such an effect as well as its counts as a function of the Comptonization parameter y. The contamination arising from radio emission by the quasar itself is also discussed. The corresponding mean Compton distortion of the cosmic microwave background spectrum is found to be well below the COBE/FIRAS upper limit.