Next-generation X-ray cluster surveys

Contemporary X-ray surveys have permitted rich galaxy clusters to be detected out to redshifts z > 1, but studies with next-generation instruments will allow this work to be extended to both higher redshift and lower cluster masses. Such studies have the potential to provide powerful constraints on the evolution of baryonic processes such as cooling and feedback within developing cosmic structures, provided that observational selection effects can be controlled. To explore this, we generate simulated surveys using the Wide Field Imager (WFI) instrument on International X-ray Observatory (IXO), studied in 2010 by NASA and ESA as a major next-generation X-ray observatory. A sample of observed groups and clusters is assembled and used to derive relationships between temperature and four cluster properties: M₅₀₀, L₅₀₀, core radius and β. These are coupled with an evolving population of dark matter haloes drawn from the Millennium Simulation to construct an evolving set of X-ray clusters which are cast into a lightcone and imaged using the main instrumental characteristics of the IXO WFI. State-of-the-art techniques are then employed for source detection and extension testing, to generate a simulated survey cluster catalogue. These simulations are used to explore the dependence of a next-generation survey on the evolution of cluster scaling relations, survey strategy (wide versus deep) and instrument point spread function (PSF). We find that a 1.8 Ms IXO survey gives a cluster sample three to five times larger for a wide survey compared to a deep survey. In both surveys, the strongest discrimination between different L_X-T evolutionary models derives from galaxy groups, with T ∼ 1-2 keV. Deep surveys can be affected by cosmic variance within this temperature range, whilst wide surveys suffer from incompleteness, and hence are more vulnerable to biases arising from incomplete knowledge of the survey selection function. Degrading the telescope PSF is found to most seriously impact on the number of low-temperature, low-redshift detections, since these have lower flux than more massive clusters detected at higher redshift.