Galaxy Clusters Discovered via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect in the 2500-Square-Degree SPT-SZ Survey

Creators: Bleem, L. E.; Crites, A. T.; Lueker, M.; Padin, S.; Shirokoff, E.; Staniszewski, Z.; Williamson, R.

Abstract

We present a catalog of galaxy clusters selected via their Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect signature from 2500 deg^2 of South Pole Telescope (SPT) data. This work represents the complete sample of clusters detected at high significance in the 2500 deg^2 SPT-SZ survey, which was completed in 2011. A total of 677 (409) cluster candidates are identified above a signal-to-noise threshold of ξ = 4.5 (5.0). Ground- and space-based optical and near-infrared (NIR) imaging confirms overdensities of similarly colored galaxies in the direction of 516 (or 76%) of the ξ > 4.5 candidates and 387 (or 95%) of the ξ > 5 candidates; the measured purity is consistent with expectations from simulations. Of these confirmed clusters, 415 were first identified in SPT data, including 251 new discoveries reported in this work. We estimate photometric redshifts for all candidates with identified optical and/or NIR counterparts; we additionally report redshifts derived from spectroscopic observations for 141 of these systems. The mass threshold of the catalog is roughly independent of redshift above z ~ 0.25 leading to a sample of massive clusters that extends to high redshift. The median mass of the sample is M_(500c(ρcrit)) ~ 3.5 x 10^(14)M_☉ h_(70)^(-1), the median redshift is z_(med) = 0.55, and the highest-redshift systems are at z > 1.4. The combination of large redshift extent, clean selection, and high typical mass makes this cluster sample of particular interest for cosmological analyses and studies of cluster formation and evolution.

Additional Information

© 2015 American Astronomical Society. Received 2014 September 2; accepted 2014 December 14; published 2015 January 27. The South Pole Telescope is supported by the National Science Foundation through grant PLR-1248097. Partial support is also provided by the NSF Physics Frontier Center grant PHY-1125897 to the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Kavli Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant GBMF 947. Galaxy cluster research at Harvard is supported by NSF grant AST-1009012 and at SAO in part by NSF grants AST-1009649 and MRI-0723073. The McGill group acknowledges funding from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada Research Chairs program, and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Argonne National Laboratory's work was supported under U.S. Department of Energy contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. This work was partially completed at Fermilab, operated by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under contract no. De-AC02-07CH11359 with the United States Department of Energy. The Munich group acknowledges support from the DFG Cluster of Excellence "Origin and Structure of the Universe" and the Transregio program TR33 "The Dark Universe." M.M. acknowledges support by NASA through a Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF51308.01-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute. T.S. and D.A. acknowledge support from the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) provided through DLR under project 50 OR 1210. Optical imaging data from the Blanco 4 m at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatories (programs 2005B- 0043, 2009B-0400, 2010A-0441, 2010B-0598) and spectroscopic observations from VLT programs 086.A-0741, 087.A-0843, 088.A-0796(A), 088.A- 0889(A,B,C), and 286.A-5021 and Gemini programs GS-2009B-Q-16, GS-2011A-C-3, GS-2011B-C-6, GS-2012A-Q-4, GS-2012A-Q-37, GS-2012B-Q-29, GS-2012B-Q-59, GS-2013A-Q-5, GS-2013A-Q-45, GS- 2013B-Q-25 and GS-2013B-Q-72 were included in this work. Additional data were obtained with the 6.5 m Magellan Telescopes and the Swope Telescope, which are located at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile and the MPG/ESO 2.2 m and ESO NTT located at La Silla Facility in Chile. This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope (PIDs 60099, 70053, 80012 and 10101),which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. Support for this work was provided by NASA through an award issued by JPL/Caltech. This work is also partly based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555; these observations are associated with programs 12246, 12477, and 13412. The Digitized Sky Surveys were produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant NAG W-2166. The images of these surveys are based on photographic data obtained using the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain and the UK Schmidt Telescope. The plates were processed into the present compressed digital form with the permission of these institutions. Facilities: Blanco (MOSAIC, NEWFIRM),Max Planck:2.2m (WFI), Gemini:South (GMOS), HST (ACS), Magellan:Baade (IMACS, FourStar), Magellan:Clay (LDSS3, Megacam), NTT (EFOSC), Spitzer (IRAC), SPT, Swope (SITe3), VLT:Antu (FORS2)

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