A SUNYAEV-ZEL'DOVICH-SELECTED SAMPLE OF THE MOST MASSIVE GALAXY CLUSTERS IN THE 2500 deg{sup 2} SOUTH POLE TELESCOPE SURVEY

Journal Article · Sat Sep 10 04:00:00 EDT 2011 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/738/2/139; COUNTRY OF INPUT: INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA)· OSTI ID:21584881

Williamson, R; Benson, B A; High, F W; Bleem, L E; Carlstrom, J E; Chang, C L; Crawford, T M ^[1]; Vanderlinde, K ^[2]; Ade, P A. R. ^[3]; Aird, K A ^[4]; Andersson, K; Bazin, G ^[5]; Armstrong, R ^[6]; Ashby, M L. N.; Brodwin, M ^[7]; Bautz, M ^[8]; Bertin, E ^[9]; Bonamente, M ^[10]; Chapman, S C ^[11]; Clocchiatti, A ^[12]

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1. Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States)
2. Department of Physics, McGill University, 3600 Rue University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T8 (Canada)
3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, CF24 3YB (United Kingdom)
4. University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States)
5. Department of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet, Scheinerstr. 1, 81679 Muenchen (Germany)
6. National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, 1205 West Clark Street, Urbanan, IL 61801 (United States)
7. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
8. MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)
9. Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095 CNRS, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, 98 bis boulevard Arago, F-75014 Paris (France)
10. Department of Space Science, VP62, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812 (United States)
11. Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HA (United Kingdom)
12. Departamento de Astronoma y Astrofsica, PUC Casilla 306, Santiago 22 (Chile)

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is currently surveying 2500 deg{sup 2} of the southern sky to detect massive galaxy clusters out to the epoch of their formation using the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. This paper presents a catalog of the 26 most significant SZ cluster detections in the full survey region. The catalog includes 14 clusters which have been previously identified and 12 that are new discoveries. These clusters were identified in fields observed to two differing noise depths: 1500 deg{sup 2} at the final SPT survey depth of 18 {mu}K arcmin at 150 GHz and 1000 deg{sup 2} at a depth of 54 {mu}K arcmin. Clusters were selected on the basis of their SZ signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) in SPT maps, a quantity which has been demonstrated to correlate tightly with cluster mass. The S/N thresholds were chosen to achieve a comparable mass selection across survey fields of both depths. Cluster redshifts were obtained with optical and infrared imaging and spectroscopy from a variety of ground- and space-based facilities. The redshifts range from 0.098 {<=} z {<=} 1.132 with a median of z{sub med} = 0.40. The measured SZ S/N and redshifts lead to unbiased mass estimates ranging from 9.8 x 10{sup 14} M{sub sun} h{sup -1}{sub 70} {<=} M{sub 200}({rho}{sub mean}) {<=} 3.1 x 10{sup 15} M{sub sun} h{sup -1}{sub 70}. Based on the SZ mass estimates, we find that none of the clusters are individually in significant tension with the {Lambda}CDM cosmological model. We also test for evidence of non-Gaussianity based on the cluster sample and find the data show no preference for non-Gaussian perturbations.

• OSTI ID: 21584881
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 738; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
CATALOGS
DETECTION
DIMENSIONLESS NUMBERS
DOCUMENT TYPES
GALAXY CLUSTERS
MASS
RED SHIFT
SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO