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Title: Galaxy Cluster Mass Reconstruction Project – III. The impact of dynamical substructure on cluster mass estimates

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [6];  [7];  [1];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [12];  [3];  [13];  [14];  [15]
  1. Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada). Dept. of Astronomy & Astrophysics
  2. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Kavli Inst. for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology; SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Univ. of Copenhagen (Denmark). The Niels Bohr Inst., Dark Cosmology Centre
  3. Univ. of Nottingham (United Kingdom). School of Physics and Astronomy
  4. Inst. d' Astrophysique de Paris (France)
  5. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences; Leiden Univ. (Netherlands). Leiden Observatory
  6. Leibniz Inst. fur Astophysik Potsdam (AIP), Potsdam (Germany); Tartu Observatory, Toravere (Estonia)
  7. INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Trieste (Italy)
  8. Inst. Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, S.J. Campos (Brazil)
  9. Leibniz Inst. fur Astophysik Potsdam (AIP), Potsdam (Germany)
  10. Tartu Observatory, Toravere (Estonia)
  11. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States); Freelance science journalist, San Diego, CA (United States)
  12. Swinburne Univ. of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC (Australia)
  13. Univ. of Western Australia, Crawley, WA (Australia). ICRAR, and ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO)
  14. Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  15. Ludwig-Maximilians Univ., Munich (Germany). Faculty of Physics
+ Show Author Affiliations

With the advent of wide-field cosmological surveys, we are approaching samples of hundreds of thousands of galaxy clusters. While such large numbers will help reduce statistical uncertainties, the control of systematics in cluster masses is crucial. Here we examine the effects of an important source of systematic uncertainty in galaxy-based cluster mass estimation techniques: the presence of significant dynamical substructure. Dynamical substructure manifests as dynamically distinct subgroups in phase-space, indicating an ‘unrelaxed’ state. This issue affects around a quarter of clusters in a generally selected sample. We employ a set of mock clusters whose masses have been measured homogeneously with commonly used galaxy-based mass estimation techniques (kinematic, richness, caustic, radial methods). We use these to study how the relation between observationally estimated and true cluster mass depends on the presence of substructure, as identified by various popular diagnostics. We find that the scatter for an ensemble of clusters does not increase dramatically for clusters with dynamical substructure. However, we find a systematic bias for all methods, such that clusters with significant substructure have higher measured masses than their relaxed counterparts. This bias depends on cluster mass: the most massive clusters are largely unaffected by the presence of significant substructure, but masses are significantly overestimated for lower mass clusters, by ~ 10 percent at 1014 and ≳ 20 percent for ≲ 1013.5. Finally, the use of cluster samples with different levels of substructure can therefore bias certain cosmological parameters up to a level comparable to the typical uncertainties in current cosmological studies.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF); European Research Council (ERC); Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515; SEV-2012-0249; CE110001020; AST-1055081; 279396
OSTI ID:
1437356
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 475, Issue 1; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (14)

Infalling groups and galaxy transformations in the cluster A2142 journal February 2018
Bayesian group finder based on marked point processes: Method and feasibility study using the 2MRS data set journal October 2018
Supercluster A2142 and collapse in action: infalling and merging groups and galaxy transformations journal December 2018
Galaxy Cluster Mass Reconstruction Project – IV. Understanding the effects of imperfect membership on cluster mass estimation journal August 2018
The Cluster-EAGLE project: a comparison of dynamical mass estimators using simulated clusters journal October 2018
‘Observing’ unrelaxed clusters in dark matter simulations journal September 2019
A Detailed Study of the Most Relaxed SPT-selected Galaxy Clusters: Properties of the Cool Core and Central Galaxy journal January 2019
A Robust and Efficient Deep Learning Method for Dynamical Mass Measurements of Galaxy Clusters journal December 2019
Galaxy Cluster Mass Estimates in the Presence of Substructure journal January 2020
GalWeight Application: A Publicly Available Catalog of Dynamical Parameters of 1800 Galaxy Clusters from SDSS-DR13, (GalWCat19) journal December 2019
Infalling groups and galaxy transformations in the cluster A2142 text January 2017
The Cluster-EAGLE project: a comparison of dynamical mass estimators using simulated clusters text January 2018
Supercluster A2142 and collapse in action - infalling and merging groups and galaxy transformations text January 2018
GalWeight Application: A publicly-available catalog of dynamical parameters of 1,800 galaxy clusters from SDSS-DR13, ($\mathtt{GalWCat19}$) text January 2019

Figures / Tables (11)

Table 1(p. 4)table Table 1
Figure 1(p. 6)figure Figure 1
Figure 2(p. 7)figure Figure 2
Figure 3(p. 7)figure Figure 3
Figure 4(p. 8)figure Figure 4
Table A1(p. 11)table Table A1
Table A2(p. 12)table Table A2
Figure B1(p. 13)figure Figure B1
Figure C1(p. 13)figure Figure C1
Figure D1(p. 14)figure Figure D1
Figure E1(p. 14)figure Figure E1

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79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
galaxies: clusters: general
galaxies: groups: general
galaxies: haloes
galaxies: kinematics and dynamics
cosmological parameters
large-scale structure of Universe