HICOSMO - cosmology with a complete sample of galaxy clusters - I. Data analysis, sample selection and luminosity-mass scaling relation

The X-ray regime, where the most massive visible component of galaxy clusters, the intracluster medium, is visible, offers directly measured quantities, like the luminosity, and derived quantities, like the total mass, to characterize these objects. The aim of this project is to analyse a complete sample of galaxy clusters in detail and constrain cosmological parameters, like the matter density, Ω_m, or the amplitude of initial density fluctuations, σ₈. The purely X-ray flux-limited sample (HIFLUGCS) consists of the 64 X-ray brightest galaxy clusters, which are excellent targets to study the systematic effects, that can bias results. We analysed in total 196 Chandra observations of the 64 HIFLUGCS clusters, with a total exposure time of 7.7 Ms. Here, we present our data analysis procedure (including an automated substructure detection and an energy band optimization for surface brightness profile analysis) that gives individually determined, robust total mass estimates. These masses are tested against dynamical and Planck Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) derived masses of the same clusters, where good overall agreement is found with the dynamical masses. The Planck SZ masses seem to show a mass-dependent bias to our hydrostatic masses; possible biases in this mass-mass comparison are discussed including the Planck selection function. Furthermore, we show the results for the (0.1-2.4) keV luminosity versus mass scaling relation. The overall slope of the sample (1.34) is in agreement with expectations and values from literature. Splitting the sample into galaxy groups and clusters reveals, even after a selection bias correction, that galaxy groups exhibit a significantly steeper slope (1.88) compared to clusters (1.06).