CFHT Optical PDCS Survey II: Evolution in the Space Density of Clusters of Galaxies

Details CFHT Optical PDCS Survey II: Evolution in the Space Density of Clusters of Galaxies CFHT Optical PDCS Survey II: Evolution in the Space Density of Clusters of Galaxies

2000-04-06

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0004091v1

2000, AJ, 120, 23

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

47 pages, LaTeX, using AASTEX v 5.0.2 preprint style. Tables included in the manuscript. Accepted in the Astronomical Journal,

Scientific paper

10.1086/301446

We present the first dynamical study of the optically selected Palomar Distant Cluster Survey (PDCS). We show that eleven out of twelve PDCS clusters we observed are real over-densities of galaxies. Most clusters have velocity dispersions appropriate for clusters of galaxies. However, we find a fraction (1/3) of objects in the PDCS which have velocity dispersions in the range of groups of galaxies (200 +/- 100 km/s) but have richnesses appropriate for clusters of galaxies. We measure the richness function, X-ray luminosity function (using both the detections and upper limits), and the mass function derived from our velocity dispersions. We confirm that the space density, as a function of richness, of clusters of galaxies in the PDCS is ~5 times that of the Abell catalog. Excluding the above fraction of 1/3 of objects with low velocity dispersions, we measure a space density ~3 times that of the Abell catalog for equivalent mass clusters of galaxies. Our space density estimates are in agreement with other low-redshift, optically-selected cluster surveys such as the EDCC, APM and EDCC2, which raises the possibility that the Abell catalog is incomplete. Our X-ray luminosity function agrees with other measurements based on both X-ray and optically selected samples, so we find that the PDCS does not miss clusters of galaxies that would be found in an X-ray selected survey. Our resulting mass function, centered around 10e14 Msun/h, agrees with the expectations from such surveys as the Canadian Network for Observational Cosmology cluster survey, though errors on our mass measurements are too large to constrain cosmological parameters.

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