Optical Scaling Relations of X-ray Selected Clusters at Moderate Redshift
Abstract
The relation between dark matter and galaxies is a fundamental problem in astrophysics. Here, we study this relation using optical observations of an X-ray-selected sample of clusters at moderate redshift (z=0.35-0.90). We collected griz images of 30 clusters with WIYN/OPTIC to measure the bright end of the luminosity function. Our imaging extends approximately 2 magnitudes fainter than M*, thus including most of the total cluster light. We use the red sequence and statistical background subtraction to estimate the richnesses and stellar luminosities of the clusters. We measure scaling relations by comparing the optical properties to X-ray mass estimates derived from Chandra observations. At low redshift, some studies indicate that total stellar luminosity is a better predictor of cluster mass than X-ray luminosity. We test whether a similar result holds at moderate redshift. In the future, we will compare the optical and X-ray properties to virial mass estimates from optical spectroscopy and to Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect observations. If photometric properties of clusters are good predictors of cluster mass, these relations could be applied to large surveys like SPT, Planck, DES, eROSITA, and LSST to improve constraints on the properties of dark energy.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #217
- Pub Date:
- January 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AAS...21714912K