The Angular Clustering of Distant Galaxy Clusters**This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under NASA contract 1407. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • We discuss the angular clustering of galaxy clusters at z > 1 selected within 50 deg2 from the Spitzer Wide-Infrared Extragalactic survey. We use a simple color selection to identify high-redshift galaxies with no dependence on galaxy rest-frame optical colorusing Spitzer IRAC 3.6 and4.5 m photometry. The majority (>90%) of galaxies with z > 1.3 are identified with ([3.6] - [4.5])AB > -0.1 mag. We identify candidate galaxy clusters at z > 1 by selecting overden-sities of 26-28 objects with [3.6] - [4.5] > -0.1 mag within radii of 1.4, which corresponds to r < 0.5 h-1 Mpc at z = 1.5. These candidate galaxy clusters show strong angular clustering, with an angular correlation function represented by w() = (3.1 0.5)(/1)-.10.1 over scales of 2-100. Assuming the redshift distribution of these galaxy clusters follows a fiducial model, these galaxy clusters have a spatial-clustering scale length r0 = 22.4 3.6 h-1 Mpc and a comoving number density n = 1.2 0.1 10-5 h2 Mpc-3. The correlation scale length and number density of these objects are comparable to those of rich galaxy clusters at low redshift. The number density of these high-redshift clusters corresponds to dark matter halos larger than (3-5) 1013 h-1 M at z = 1.5. Assuming the dark halos hosting these high-redshift clusters grow following ACDM models, these clusters will reside in halos larger than (1-2) 1014 h-1 M at z = 0.2, comparable to rich galaxy clusters. 2008. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

published proceedings

  • The Astrophysical Journal

author list (cited authors)

  • Papovich, C.

citation count

  • 84

complete list of authors

  • Papovich, Casey

publication date

  • March 2008