Optical Clusters from SDSS Imaging: The MaxBCG Cluster Catalog

Mathematics – Logic

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Scientific paper

Several wide-angle CCD-imaging surveys on the horizon propose large galaxy cluster searches as a means for extracting cosmological information. The recently completed Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) serves as a testing ground for such programs, which demand immense cluster catalogs covering a range of masses, with accurate photometric redshifts and mass proxies, and with well-understood selection functions made possible by realistic mock galaxy catalogs.
In this talk, we present one of the first such samples: the publicly-available MaxBCG optical cluster catalog. 13,823 galaxy clusters and large groups with 10 or more bright red galaxies are detected in nearly 8000 square degrees of 5-band SDSS imaging using the maxBCG method, which detects clusters by exploiting 1) their observed color and spatial clustering and 2) the presence of a bright cluster galaxy (BCG). The catalog is approximately volume-limited and covers redshifts 0.1 < z < 0.3, and masses > 1 × 1014 solar masses, making it the largest cluster sample constructed to date. Using high-fidelity mock galaxy catalogs, we show the sample to be >90% complete for masses > 2 × 1014 and >90% pure for systems with > 10 bright red galaxies. The photometric redshifts are measured with σz < 0.015, and the richnesses are shown to scale well with dynamical mass.
This catalog forms the foundation for a range of ongoing low-redshift studies which aim to calibrate the observable-mass relation, cross-correlate optical observables with those at radio and X--ray wavelengths, and develop methods for quantifying the cluster selection function in imaging-based cluster samples in an effort to constrain cosmological parameters.

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