Weak gravitational lensing by cluster of galaxies

Physics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Scientific paper

I present a set of weak lensing measurements of a set of ~40 highly X-ray luminous clusters of galaxies. The clusters were observed with either 2k monolithic CCDs or with the UH8k mosaic CCD camera, or both. The weak shear due to gravitational lensing was estimated using recently developed techniques to correct for the effects of realistic point spread functions and to optimally weigh the contribution of each galaxy to the final shear estimate. The weak lensing results are presented in the form of maps of the reconstructed dimensionless surface density κ and plots showing the radial cluster mass profiles. Two-color, V- and I-band galaxy photometry is used to isolate early-type galaxies and make predictions for the surface density distribution in the observed fields. The predicted and observed maps of κ are correlated in various ways to derive values for the mass to (early type galaxy) light ratios in each cluster field. The relative amount and distribution of light and mass show significant differences from cluster to cluster and is probably related to the dynamical state of a cluster. The average mass-to-light ratio of the clusters indicates a low-density Universe with Ω0 ~= 0.25. The mass measurements are also used to construct the first cluster mass function based on weak gravitational lensing data. A Hubble Space Telescope mosaic covering the central ~1h -1 Mpc of the rich cluster Abell 1689 is analyzed in a similar way as for the ground-based data. A highly significant mass peak, strongly correlated with the galaxy light distribution, is recovered, and the HST cluster mass estimate is shown to be consistent with estimates from ground-based imaging. It is demonstrated that weak lensing measurements, preferably in combination with color. information from multi-band galaxy photometry, can be used to identify new cluster candidates at high redshifts. A measurement of the net shear in ~20' UH8k fields is used to estimate the shear variance due to weak lensing by large- scale structures along the line of sight.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Weak gravitational lensing by cluster of galaxies does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Weak gravitational lensing by cluster of galaxies, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Weak gravitational lensing by cluster of galaxies will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1115710

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.