Growth of Structure Measurement from a Large Cluster Survey using Chandra and XMM-Newton

John R. Peterson, J. G. Jernigan, R. Gupta, J. Bankert, S. M. Kahn, M. Sako, T. Krane, A. Lawrence

Research output: Contribution to journalMeeting abstractpeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

We present a large X-ray selected serendipitous cluster survey based on a novel joint analysis of archival Chandra and XMM-Newton data. The survey provides enough depth to reach clusters of flux of 10-14 ergs cm-2 s-1 near z 1 and simultaneously a large enough sample to find evidence for the strong evolution of clusters expected from structure formation theory. We detected a total of 723 clusters of which 462 are newly discovered clusters with greater than 6 significance. In addition, we also detect and measure 261 previously-known clusters and groups that can be used to calibrate the survey. The survey exploits a technique which combines the exquisite Chandra imaging quality with the high throughput of the XMM Newton telescopes using overlapping survey regions. A large fraction of the contamination from AGN point sources is mitigated by using this technique. This results in a higher sensitivity for finding clusters of galaxies with relatively few photons and a large part of our survey has a flux sensitivity between 10-14 and 10-15 ergs cm2 s-1. The survey covers 41.2 square degrees of overlapping Chandra and XMM Newton fields and 122.2 square degrees of non-overlapping Chandra data. We measure the log N-log S distribution and fit it with a redshift-dependent model characterized by a luminosity distribution proportional to e-z/z0. We find that z0 to be in the range 0.7 to 1.3, indicative of rapid cluster evolution, as expected for cosmic structure formation using parameters appropriate to the concordance cosmological model. With a combination of SDSS, UKIDSS, and pointed optical follow-up observations, we are measuring the false detection rate and estimating photometric redshifts. This will enable precision measurements of cosmological parameters by using the evolution of the cluster mass function.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)21301
JournalBulletin of the American Astronomical Society
Volume43
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2011
EventAmerican Astronomical Society 217th Meeting - Seattle, Washington, United States
Duration: 9 Jan 201113 Jan 2011

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