TY - JOUR
T1 - Distant galaxy clusters identified from optical background fluctuations
AU - Zaritsky, Dennis
AU - Nelson, Amy E.
AU - Dalcanton, Julianne J.
AU - Gonzalez, Anthony H.
N1 - Funding Information:
D. Z. and A. E. N. gratefully acknowledge funding from the California Space Institute. A. E. N. also acknowledges support from a UCSC Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship. Financial support for J. J. D. was provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant 2-6649 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc., for NASA under contract NAS 5-26555. A. H. G. acknowledges support from an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
PY - 1997
Y1 - 1997
N2 - We present the first high-redshift (0.3 < z < 1.1) galaxy clusters found by systematically identifying optical low surface brightness fluctuations in the background sky. Using spectra obtained with the Keck I telescope and I-band images from the Palomar 1.5 m telescope, we conclude that at least eight of the 10 candidates examined are high-redshift galaxy clusters. The identification of such clusters from low surface brightness fluctuations provides a complement to classic selection methods based on overdensities of resolved galaxies and enables us to search efficiently for rich high-redshift clusters over large areas of the sky. The detections described here are the first in a survey that covers a total of nearly 140 deg2 of the sky and should yield, if these preliminary results are representative, over 300 such clusters.
AB - We present the first high-redshift (0.3 < z < 1.1) galaxy clusters found by systematically identifying optical low surface brightness fluctuations in the background sky. Using spectra obtained with the Keck I telescope and I-band images from the Palomar 1.5 m telescope, we conclude that at least eight of the 10 candidates examined are high-redshift galaxy clusters. The identification of such clusters from low surface brightness fluctuations provides a complement to classic selection methods based on overdensities of resolved galaxies and enables us to search efficiently for rich high-redshift clusters over large areas of the sky. The detections described here are the first in a survey that covers a total of nearly 140 deg2 of the sky and should yield, if these preliminary results are representative, over 300 such clusters.
KW - Cosmology: observations
KW - Galaxies: clusters: general
KW - Galaxies: distances and redshifts
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U2 - 10.1086/310625
DO - 10.1086/310625
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:21744435006
VL - 480
SP - L91-L94
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
SN - 0004-637X
IS - 2 PART II
ER -