Detection of Galaxy Clusters with the XMM-Newton Large Scale Structure Survey

Technical Report · Fri Sep 03 00:00:00 EDT 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/833122· OSTI ID:833122

Piacentine, J ^[1]

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1. SLAC

For many years the power of counting clusters of galaxies as a function of their mass has been recognized as a powerful cosmological probe; however, they are only now beginning to acquire data from dedicated surveys with sufficient sky coverage and sensitivity to measure the cluster population out to distances where the dark energy came to dominate the Universe's evolution. This project uses the XMM X-ray telescope to scan a large area of sky, detecting the X-ray photons from the hot plasma that lies in the deep potential wells of massive clusters of galaxies. These clusters appear as extended (not point-like) objects, each providing just a few hundred photons in a typical observation. The detection of extended sources in such a low signal-to-noise situation is an important problem in astrophysics: they propose to solve it by using as much prior information as possible, translating their experience with well-measured clusters to define a ''template'' cluster that can be varied and matched to the features seen in the XMM images. using analysis code, that can be straightforwardly adapted to this problem: the template was defined, and then the method applied to real XMM data. Presented are the findings based on the software's ability to distinguish astronomical objects in a series of test runs and finally on real XMM data. The results of these series of experiments suggests a level of confidence for the software to be used in future endeavors to identify clusters.

• Research Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Menlo Park, CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (US)
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00515
• OSTI ID: 833122
• Report Number(s): SLAC-TN-04-068
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
ASTROPHYSICS
DETECTION
GALAXIES
GALAXY CLUSTERS
HOT PLASMA
PHOTONS
SENSITIVITY
SKY
TELESCOPES