Cosmological Constraints from the SDSS maxBCG Cluster Catalog

Technical Report · Mon Aug 03 04:00:00 EDT 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/962101· OSTI ID:962101

Rozo, Eduardo; Wechsler, Risa H; Rykoff, Eli S; Annis, James T; Becker, Matthew R; Evrard, August E; Frieman, Joshua A; Hansen, Sarah M; Hao, Jia; Johnston, David E; Koester, Benjamin P; McKay, Timothy A; Sheldon, Erin S; Weinberg, David H

We use the abundance and weak lensing mass measurements of the SDSS maxBCG cluster catalog to simultaneously constrain cosmology and the richness-mass relation of the clusters. Assuming a flat {Lambda}CDM cosmology, we find {sigma}{sub 8}({Omega}{sub m}/0.25){sup 0.41} = 0.832 {+-} 0.033 after marginalization over all systematics. In common with previous studies, our error budget is dominated by systematic uncertainties, the primary two being the absolute mass scale of the weak lensing masses of the maxBCG clusters, and uncertainty in the scatter of the richness-mass relation. Our constraints are fully consistent with the WMAP five-year data, and in a joint analysis we find {sigma}{sub 8} = 0.807 {+-} 0.020 and {Omega}{sub m} = 0.265 {+-} 0.016, an improvement of nearly a factor of two relative to WMAP5 alone. Our results are also in excellent agreement with and comparable in precision to the latest cosmological constraints from X-ray cluster abundances. The remarkable consistency among these results demonstrates that cluster abundance constraints are not only tight but also robust, and highlight the power of optically-selected cluster samples to produce precision constraints on cosmological parameters.

• Research Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76SF00515
• OSTI ID: 962101
• Report Number(s): SLAC-PUB-13719; arXiv:0902.3702
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ABUNDANCE
ACCURACY
Astrophysics
COSMOLOGY