Spectroscopic Quantification of Projection Effects in the SDSS redMaPPer Galaxy Cluster Catalogue
J. Myles, D. Gruen, A. B. Mantz, S. W. Allen, R. G. Morris, E. Rykoff, M. Costanzi, C. To, J. DeRose, R. H. Wechsler, E. Rozo, T. Jeltema, E. R. Carrasco, A. Kremin, R. Kron
Projection effects, whereby galaxies along the line-of-sight to a galaxy cluster are mistakenly associated with the cluster halo, present a significant challenge for optical cluster cosmology. We use statistically representative spectral coverage of luminous galaxies to investigate how projection effects impact the low-redshift limit of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) redMaPPer galaxy cluster catalogue. Spectroscopic redshifts enable us to differentiate true cluster members from false positives and determine the fraction of candidate cluster members viewed in projection. Our main results can be summarized as follows: first, we show that a simple double-Gaussian model can be used to describe the distribution of line-of-sight velocities in the redMaPPer sample; second, the incidence of projection effects is substantial, accounting for $\sim 16$ per cent of the weighted richness for the lowest richness objects; third, projection effects are a strong function of richness, with the contribution in the highest richness bin being several times smaller than for low-richness objects; fourth, our measurement has a similar amplitude to state-of-the-art models, but finds a steeper dependence of projection effects on richness than these models; and fifth, the slope of the observed velocity dispersion--richness relation, corrected for projection effects, implies an approximately linear relationship between the true, three-dimensional halo mass and three-dimensional richness. Our results provide a robust, empirical description of the impact of projection effects on the SDSS redMaPPer cluster sample and exemplify the synergies between optical imaging and spectroscopic data for studies of galaxy cluster astrophysics and cosmology.
We evaluate the performance of the SDSS DR8 redMaPPer photometric cluster catalog by comparing it to overlapping X-ray and SZ selected catalogs from the literature. We confirm the redMaPPer photometric redshifts are nearly unbiased (<Δz> < 0.005), have low scatter (σ_z ~ 0.006-0.02, depending on redshift), and have a low catastrophic failure rate (~ 1%). Both the T_X-λ and Mgas-λ scaling relations are consistent with a mass scatter of σ_{\ln M|λ} ~ 25%, albeit with a ~ 1% outlier rate due to projection effects. This failure rate is somewhat lower than that expected for the full cluster sample,…
We compare the Planck Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) cluster sample (PSZ1) to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) redMaPPer catalog, finding that all Planck clusters within the redMaPPer mask and within the redshift range probed by redMaPPer are contained in the redMaPPer cluster catalog. These common clusters define a tight scaling relation in the richness-SZ mass ($λ$--$M_{SZ}$) plane, with an intrinsic scatter in richness of $σ_{λ|M_{SZ}} = 0.266 \pm 0.017$. The corresponding intrinsic scatter in true cluster halo mass at fixed richness is $\approx 21\%$. The regularity of this scaling relation is …
We perform a measurement of the mass--richness relation of the redMaPPer galaxy cluster catalogue using weak lensing data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We have carefully characterized a broad range of systematic uncertainties, including shear calibration errors, photo-$z$ biases, dilution by member galaxies, source obscuration, magnification bias, incorrect assumptions about cluster mass profiles, cluster centering, halo triaxiality, and projection effects. We also compare measurements of the lensing signal from two independently-produced shear and photometric redshift catalogues to chara…
We improve upon the cosmological constraints derived from the abundance and weak-lensing data of redMaPPer clusters detected in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Specifically, we derive gas mass data using Chandra X-ray follow-up of a complete sample of the 30 richest SDSS redMaPPer clusters with $z\in[0.1,0.3]$, and use these additional data to improve upon the original analysis by Costanzi et al. (2019b). We simultaneously fit for the parameters of the richness-mass relation, the cluster gas mass-mass relation, and cosmology. By including our X-ray cluster sample in the SDSS cluster cosmo…
We study the distribution of line-of-sight velocities of galaxies in the vicinity of SDSS redMaPPer galaxy clusters. Based on their velocities, galaxies can be split into two categories: galaxies that are dynamically associated with the cluster, and random line-of-sight projections. Both the fraction of galaxies associated with the galaxy clusters, and the velocity dispersion of the same, exhibit a sharp feature as a function of radius. The feature occurs at a radial scale $R_{\rm edge} \approx 2.2R_{\rmλ}$, where $R_{\rmλ}$ is the cluster radius assigned by redMaPPer. We refer to $R_{\rm edge…
Distances to the $k$-nearest-neighbor ($k$NN) data points from volume-filling query points are a sensitive probe of spatial clustering. Here we present the first application of $k$NN summary statistics to observational clustering measurement, using the 1000 richest redMaPPer clusters ($0.1\leqslant z\leqslant 0.3$) from the SDSS DR8 catalog. A clustering signal is defined as a difference in the cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) of $k$NN distances from fixed query points to the observed clusters versus a set of unclustered random points. We find that the $k=1,2$-NN CDFs of redMaPPer devi…
We describe redMaPPer, a new red-sequence cluster finder specifically designed to make optimal use of ongoing and near-future large photometric surveys. The algorithm has multiple attractive features: (1) It can iteratively self-train the red-sequence model based on minimal spectroscopic training sample, an important feature for high redshift surveys; (2) It can handle complex masks with varying depth; (3) It produces cluster-appropriate random points to enable large-scale structure studies; (4) All clusters are assigned a full redshift probability distribution P(z); (5) Similarly, clusters ca…
We present the first weak lensing calibration of $μ_{\star}$, a new galaxy cluster mass proxy corresponding to the total stellar mass of red and blue members, in two cluster samples selected from the SDSS Stripe 82 data: 230 redMaPPer clusters at redshift $0.1\leq z<0.33$ and 136 Voronoi Tessellation (VT) clusters at $0.1 \leq z < 0.6$. We use the CS82 shear catalog and stack the clusters in $μ_{\star}$ bins to measure a mass-observable power law relation. For redMaPPer clusters we obtain $M_0 = (1.77 \pm 0.36) \times 10^{14}h^{-1} M_{\odot}$, $α= 1.74 \pm 0.62$. For VT clusters, we find $M_0 …
In order to study the galaxy population of galaxy clusters with photometric data one must be able to accurately discriminate between cluster members and non-members. The redMaPPer cluster finding algorithm treats this problem probabilistically. Here, we utilize SDSS and GAMA spectroscopic membership rates to validate the redMaPPer membership probability estimates for clusters with $z\in[0.1,0.3]$. We find small - but correctable - biases, sourced by three different systematics. The first two were expected a priori, namely blue cluster galaxies and correlated structure along the line of sight. …
We performed a detailed and, for a large part interactive, analysis of the matching output between the X-CLASS and redMaPPer cluster catalogues. The overlap between the two catalogues has been accurately determined and possible cluster positional errors were manually recovered. The final samples comprise 270 and 355 redMaPPer and X-CLASS clusters respectively. X-ray cluster matching rates were analysed as a function of optical richness. In a second step, the redMaPPer clusters were correlated with the entire X-ray catalogue, containing point and uncharacterised sources (down to a few 10^{-15} …
Using Planck satellite data, we construct SZ gas pressure profiles for a large, volume-complete sample of optically selected clusters. We have defined a sample of over 8,000 redMaPPer clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), within the volume-complete redshift region 0.100 < z < 0.325, for which we construct Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect maps by stacking Planck data over the full range of richness. Dividing the sample into richness bins we simultaneously solve for the mean cluster mass in each bin together with the corresponding radial pressure profile parameters, employing an MCMC …
In this paper we present the X-ray analysis of SDSS DR8 redMaPPer (SDSSRM) clusters using data products from the $XMM$ Cluster Survey (XCS). In total, 1189 SDSSRM clusters fall within the $XMM$-Newton footprint. This has yielded 456 confirmed detections accompanied by X-ray luminosity ($L_{X}$) measurements. Of the detected clusters, 382 have an associated X-ray temperature measurement ($T_{X}$). This represents one of the largest samples of coherently derived cluster $T_{X}$ values to date. Our analysis of the X-ray observable to richness ($λ$) scaling relations has demonstrated that scatter …
In the last few years, there has been a resurgence of interest in obtaining observational bounds on the graviton mass, following the detection of gravitational waves, because of the versatility of massive graviton theories in resolving multiple problems in cosmology and fundamental physics. In this work, we apply the method proposed in Rana et al.(arXiv:1801.03309), which consists of looking for Yukawa-like fall off in the gravitational potential, to stacked galaxy cluster catalogs from three disparate surveys. These include catalogs from 2500 sq. degree SPT-SZ survey, the Planck all-sky SZ ca…
In order to place constraints on cosmology through optical surveys of galaxy clusters, one must first understand the properties of those clusters. To this end, we introduce the Mass Analysis Tool for Chandra (MATCha), a pipeline which uses a parallellized algorithm to analyze archival Chandra data. MATCha simultaneously calculates X-ray temperatures and luminosities and performs centering measurements for hundreds of potential galaxy clusters using archival X-ray exposures. We run MATCha on the redMaPPer SDSS DR8 cluster catalog and use MATCha's output X-ray temperatures and luminosities to an…
We present a new galaxy cluster catalog constructed from SDSS DR9 using an Adaptive Matched Filter technique. Our main catalog has 46,479 galaxy clusters with richness $Λ_{200} > 20$ in the redshift range 0.045 $\le z <$ 0.641 in $\sim$11,500 $deg^{2}$ of the sky. Angular position, richness, core and virial radii and redshift estimates for these clusters, as well as their error analysis are provided. We also provide an extended version with a lower richness cut, containing 79,368 clusters. This version, in addition to the clusters in the main catalog, also contains those clusters (with richnes…
The accurate determination of the galaxy cluster mass-observable relations is one of the major challenge of modern astrophysics and cosmology. We present a new statistical methodology to constrain the evolution of the mass-observable relations. Instead of measuring individual mass of galaxy clusters, we only consider large scale homogeneity of the Universe. In this case, we expect the present galaxy cluster mass function to be the same everywhere in the Universe. Using relative abundance matching, we contraint the relation between the richness, $λ(z)$, and the expected present mass, $M(t_0)$, …
The clustering of dark matter halos depends on the assembly history of halos at fixed halo mass; a phenomenon referred to as \textit{halo assembly bias}. Halo assembly bias is readily observed in cosmological simulations of dark matter. However, it is difficult to detect it in observations. The identification of galaxy or cluster properties correlated with the formation time of the halo at fixed halo mass and the ability to select galaxy clusters free from projection effects are the two most significant hurdles in the observational detection of halo assembly bias. The latter, in particular, ca…
This paper presents results of a spectroscopic analysis of the X-CLASS-redMaPPer (XC1-RM) galaxy cluster sample. X-CLASS is a serendipitous search for clusters in the X-ray wavebands based on the XMM-Newton archive, whereas redMaPPer is an optical cluster catalogue derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The present sample comprises 92 X-ray extended sources identified in optical images within 1\arcmin~separation. The area covered by the cluster sample is $\sim$ 27 deg$^{2}$. The clusters span a wide redshift range (0.05 < z < 0.6) and 88 clusters benefit from spectrosopically confir…
A clean measurement of the evolution of the galaxy cluster mass function can significantly improve our understanding of cosmology from the rapid growth of cluster masses below z < 0.5. Here we examine the consistency of cluster catalogues selected from the SDSS by applying two independent gravity-based methods using all available spectroscopic redshifts from the DR10 release. First, we detect a gravitational redshift related signal for 20,119 and 13,128 clusters with spectroscopic redshifts contained in the GMBCG and redMaPPer catalogues, respectively, at a level of $\sim - 10$ km s$^{-1}$. Th…
We present the methods and first results of the search for galaxy clusters in the Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS). The adopted algorithm and the criterium for selecting the member galaxies are illustrated. Here we report the preliminary results obtained over a small area (7 sq. degrees), and the comparison of our cluster candidates with those found in the RedMapper and SZ Planck catalogues; the analysis to a larger area (148 sq. degrees) is currently in progress. By the KiDS cluster search, we expect to increase the completeness of the clusters catalogue to z = 0.6-0.7 compared to RedMapper.
We measure the alignment of the shapes of galaxy clusters, as traced by their satellite distributions, with the matter density field using the public redMaPPer catalogue based on SDSS-DR8, which contains 26 111 clusters up to z~0.6. The clusters are split into nine redshift and richness samples; in each of them we detect a positive alignment, showing that clusters point towards density peaks. We interpret the measurements within the tidal alignment paradigm, allowing for a richness and redshift dependence. The intrinsic alignment (IA) amplitude at the pivot redshift z=0.3 and pivot richness λ=…
Sutter et al. have responded to the criticisms we made of their cosmic void catalogue in our recent paper presenting an alternative catalogue (Nadathur & Hotchkiss 2013). Unfortunately, their response contains several statements which are incorrect, as we point out in this note.
Taking advantage of $\sim4700$ deg$^2$ optical coverage of the Southern sky offered by the VST ATLAS survey, we construct a new catalogue of photometrically selected galaxy groups and clusters using the {\sc orca} cluster detection algorithm. The catalogue contains $\sim 22,000$ detections with $N_{200}>10$ and $\sim9,000$ with $N_{200}>20$. We estimate the photometric redshifts of the clusters using machine learning and find the redshift distribution of the sample to extend to $z\sim0.7$, peaking at $z\sim0.25$. We calibrate the ATLAS cluster mass-richness scaling relation using masses from t…
We construct a large, redshift complete sample of distant galaxy clusters by correlating Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 12 (DR12) redshifts with clusters identified with the red-sequence Matched-filter Probabilistic Percolation (redMaPPer) algorithm. Our spectroscopic completeness is 97% for ~ 7,000 clusters within the redMaPPer selection limit, $z \leqslant$ 0.325, so that our cluster correlation functions are much more precise than earlier work and not suppressed by photometric redshifts. We derive an accurate power-law mass-richness relation from the observed abundance with re…
We describe updates to the \redmapper{} algorithm, a photometric red-sequence cluster finder specifically designed for large photometric surveys. The updated algorithm is applied to $150\,\mathrm{deg}^2$ of Science Verification (SV) data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), and to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR8 photometric data set. The DES SV catalog is locally volume limited, and contains 786 clusters with richness $λ>20$ (roughly equivalent to $M_{\rm{500c}}\gtrsim10^{14}\,h_{70}^{-1}\,M_{\odot}$) and $0.2<z<0.9$. The DR8 catalog consists of 26311 clusters with $0.08<z<0.6$, with a s…
Aims. We intend to compile a new galaxy group and cluster sample of the latest available SDSS data, adding several parameter for the purpose of studying the supercluster network, galaxy and group evolution, and their connection to the surrounding environment. Methods. We used a modified friends-of-friends (FoF) method with a variable linking length in the transverse and radial directions to eliminate selection effects and to find reliably as many groups as possible. Using the galaxies as a basis, we calculated the luminosity density field. Results. We create a new catalogue of groups and clust…
In this work we present a new catalogue of Cosmic Filaments obtained from the latest Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) public data. In order to detect filaments, we implement a version of the Subspace-Constrained Mean-Shift algorithm, boosted by Machine Learning techniques. This allows us to detect cosmic filaments as one-dimensional maxima in the galaxy density distribution. Our filament catalogue uses the cosmological sample of SDSS, including Data Release 16, so it inherits its sky footprint (aside from small border effects) and redshift coverage. In particular, this means that, taking advant…
We have constructed a set of supercluster catalogues for the galaxies from the SDSS survey main and luminous red galaxy (LRG) flux-limited samples. To delineate superclusters, we calculated luminosity density fields using the B3-spline kernel of the radius of 8 Mpc/h for the main sample and 16 Mpc/h for the LRG sample and define regions with densities over a selected threshold as superclusters, while utilising almost the whole volume of both samples. We created two types of catalogues, one with an adaptive local threshold and a set of catalogues with different global thresholds. We describe th…
Recently, several studies have discovered a strong discrepancy between the large-scale clustering biases of two subsamples of galaxy clusters at the same halo mass, split by their average projected membership distances $R_{\mathrm{mem}}$. The level of this discrepancy significantly exceeds the maximum halo assembly bias signal predicted by LCDM. In this study, we explore whether some of the clustering bias differences could be caused by biases in $R_{\mathrm{mem}}$ due to projection effects from other systems along the line-of-sight. We thoroughly investigate the halo assembly bias of the phot…
We provide flux-limited and volume-limited galaxy group and cluster catalogues, based on the spectroscopic sample of the SDSS data release 10 galaxies. We used a modified friends-of-friends (FoF) method with a variable linking length in the transverse and radial directions to identify as many realistic groups as possible. The flux-limited catalogue incorporates galaxies down to m_r = 17.77 mag. It includes 588193 galaxies and 82458 groups. The volume-limited catalogues are complete for absolute magnitudes down to M_r = -18.0, -18.5, -19.0, -19.5, -20.0, -20.5, and -21.0; the completeness is ac…
Recently, Nadathur & Hotchkiss (2013) submitted a paper discussing a new cosmic void catalog. This paper includes claims about the void catalog described in Sutter et al. (2012). In this note, we respond to those claims, clarify some discrepancies between the text of Sutter et al. (2012) and the most recent version of the catalog, and provide some comments on the differences between our catalog and that of Nadathur & Hotchkiss (2013). All updates and documentation for our catalog are available at http://www.cosmicvoids.net.
Data from the SPectroscopic IDentification of ERosita Sources (SPIDERS) are searched for a detection of the gravitational redshifting of light from $\sim\!20\,000$ galaxies in $\sim\!2500$ galaxy clusters using three definitions of the cluster centre: its Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG), the redMaPPer identified Central Galaxy (CG), or the peak of X-ray emission. Distributions of velocity offsets between galaxies and their host cluster's centre, found using observed redshifts, are created. The quantity $\hatΔ$, the average of the radial velocity difference between the cluster members and the cl…
The Planck catalogues of SZ sources, PSZ1 and PSZ2, are the largest catalogues of galaxy clusters selected through their SZ signature in the full sky. In 2013, we started a long-term observational program at Canary Island observatories with the aim of validating about 500 unconfirmed SZ sources. In this work we present results of the initial pre-screening of possible cluster counterparts using photometric and spectroscopic data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR12. Our main aim is to identify previously unconfirmed PSZ2 cluster candidates and to contribute in determination of the actual purity…
We constrain the scaling relation between optical richness ($λ$) and halo mass ($M$) for a sample of SDSS redMaPPer galaxy clusters within the context of the {\it Planck} cosmological model. We use a forward modeling approach where we model the probability distribution of optical richness for a given mass, $P(\ln λ| M)$. To model the abundance and the stacked lensing profiles, we use an emulator specifically built to interpolate the halo mass function and the stacked lensing profile for an arbitrary set of halo mass and redshift, which is calibrated based on a suite of high-resolution $N$-body…
We present a catalogue of galaxy clusters detected in the Planck all-sky Compton parameter maps and identified using data from the WISE and SDSS surveys. The catalogue comprises about 3000 clusters in the SDSS fields. We expect the completeness of this catalogue to be high for clusters with masses larger than M_500 =~ 3x10^14 Msun, located at redshifts z<0.7. At redshifts above z=~0.4, the catalogue contains approximately an order of magnitude more clusters than the 2nd Planck Catalogue of Sunyaev-Zeldovich sources in the same fields of the sky. This catalogue can be used for identification of…
Optical clusters identified from red-sequence galaxies suffer from projection effects, where interloper galaxies along the line-of-sight to a cluster are mistaken as genuine members of the cluster. In the previous study (Sunayama et al. 2020), we found that the projection effects cause the boost on the amplitudes of clustering and lensing on large scale compared to the expected amplitudes in the absence of any projection effects. These boosts are caused by preferential selections of filamentary structure aligned to the line-of-sight due to distance uncertainties in photometric surveys. We mode…
The results of a large area, ~600 deg^2, K-band flux-limited spectroscopic survey for luminous quasars are presented. The survey utilises the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Large Area Survey (LAS) in regions of sky within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) footprint. The K-band excess (KX) of all quasars with respect to Galactic stars is exploited in combination with a photometric redshift/classification scheme to identify quasar candidates for spectroscopic follow-up observations. The data contained within this investigation will be able to provide new constraints on the fraction of…
The main feature of the spatial large-scale galaxy distribution is its intricate network of galaxy filaments. This network is spanned by the galaxy locations that can be interpreted as a three-dimensional point distribution. The global properties of the point process can be measured by different statistical methods, which, however, do not describe directly the structure elements. The morphology of the large scale structure, on the other hand, is an important property of the galaxy distribution. Here we apply an object point process with interactions (the Bisous model) to trace and extract the …
The study of the interesting cosmological properties of voids in the Universe depends on the efficient and robust identification of such voids in galaxy redshift surveys. Recently, Sutter et al. (2012) have published a public catalogue of voids in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 main galaxy and luminous red galaxy samples, using the void-finding algorithm ZOBOV, which is based on the watershed transform. We examine the properties of this catalogue and show that it suffers from several problems and inconsistencies, including the identification of some extremely overdense regions as …
(Abridged) Galaxies with polar rings (PRGs) are a unique class of extragalactic objects allowing to investigate a wide range of problems, linked with the formation and evolution of galaxies, and to study the properties of their dark haloes. The progress in the study of PRGs is constrained by a small number of known objects of this type. Up to date, we can only attribute about two dozens of kinematically-confirmed galaxies to this class, mostly from Whitmore et al. (1990) catalogue. We present a new catalogue of PRGs based on the results of the original Galaxy Zoo project. Based on the prelimin…
When dark matter halos are accreted by massive host clusters, strong gravitational tidal forces begin stripping mass from the accreted subhalos. This stripping eventually removes all mass beyond a subhalo's tidal radius, but the unbound mass remains in the vicinity of the satellite for at least a dynamical time t_dyn. The N-body subhalo study of Chamberlain et al. verified this picture and pointed out a useful observational consequence: measurements of subhalo correlations beyond the tidal radius are sensitive to the infall time, t_infall, of the subhalo onto its host. We perform this cross-co…
We present catalogues of voids for the SDSS DR7 redshift survey and for Millennium I simulation mock data. We aim to compare the observations with simulations based on a $Λ$CDM model and a semi-analytic galaxy formation model. We use the void statistics as a test for these models. We assembled a mock catalogue that closely resembles the SDSS DR7 catalogue and carried out a parallel statistical analysis of the observed and simulated catalogue. We find that in the observation and the simulation, voids tend to be equally spherical. The total volume occupied by the voids and their total number are…
We study the properties of Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) drawn from a catalogue of more than 69000 clusters in the SDSS DR6 based on the adaptive matched filter technique (AMF, Szabo et al., 2010). Our sample consists of more than 14300 galaxies in the redshift range 0.1-0.3. We test the catalog by showing that it includes well-known BCGs which lie in the SDSS footprint. We characterize the BCGs in terms of r-band luminosities and optical colours as well as their trends with redshift. In particular, we define and study the fraction of blue BCGs, namely those that are likely to be missed by…
Context. Friends-of-friends algorithms are a common tool to detect galaxy groups and clusters in large survey data. In order to be as precise as possible, they have to be carefully calibrated using mock catalogues. Aims. We create an accurate and robust description of the matter distribution in the local Universe using the most up-to-date available data. This will provide the input for a specific cosmological test planned as follow-up to this work, and will be useful for general extragalactic and cosmological research. Methods. We created a set of galaxy group catalogues based on the 2MRS and …
We compile a sample of X-ray-selected galaxy groups and clusters from the XMM-Newton serendipitous source catalogue (2XMMi-DR3) with optical confirmation and redshift measurement from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The X-ray cluster candidates were selected from the 2XMMi-DR3 catalogue in the footprint of the SDSS-DR7. We developed a finding algorithm to search for overdensities of galaxies at the positions of the X-ray cluster candidates in the photometric redshift space and to measure the redshifts of the clusters from the SDSS data. The detection algorithm provides the photometric red…
We present a sample of 383 X-ray selected galaxy groups and clusters with spectroscopic redshift measurements (up to z ~ 0.79) from the 2XMMi/SDSS Galaxy Cluster Survey. The X-ray cluster candidates were selected as serendipitously detected sources from the 2XMMi-DR3 catalogue that were located in the footprint of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-DR7). The cluster galaxies with available spectroscopic redshifts were selected from the SDSS-DR10. We developed an algorithm for identifying the cluster candidates that are associated with spectroscopically targeted luminous red galaxies and for co…
We use simulated galaxy surveys to study: i) how galaxy membership in redMaPPer clusters maps to the underlying halo population, and ii) the accuracy of a mean dynamical cluster mass, $M_σ(λ)$, derived from stacked pairwise spectroscopy of clusters with richness $λ$. Using $\sim\! 130,000$ galaxy pairs patterned after the SDSS redMaPPer cluster sample study of Rozo et al. (2015 RMIV), we show that the pairwise velocity PDF of central--satellite pairs with $m_i < 19$ in the simulation matches the form seen in RMIV. Through joint membership matching, we deconstruct the main Gaussian velocity com…
We present a fast method of producing mock galaxy catalogues that can be used to compute covariance matrices of large-scale clustering measurements and test the methods of analysis. Our method populates a 2nd-order Lagrangian Perturbation Theory (2LPT) matter field, where we calibrate masses of dark matter halos by detailed comparisons with N-body simulations. We demonstrate the clustering of halos is recovered at ~10 per cent accuracy. We populate halos with mock galaxies using a Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) prescription, which has been calibrated to reproduce the clustering measurement…
We study the mass-richness relation using galaxy catalogues and images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We use two independent methods, in the first one, we calibrate the scaling relation with weak-lensing mass estimates. In the second procedure we apply a background subtraction technique to derive the probability distribution, $P(M \mid N)$, that groups with $N$-members have a virialized halo mass $M$. Lensing masses are derived in different richness bins for two galaxy systems sets: the maxBCG catalogue and a catalogue based on a group finder algorithm developed by Yang et al. MaxBCG resul…
The cosmological utility of galaxy cluster catalogues is primarily limited by our ability to calibrate the relation between halo mass and observable mass proxies such as cluster richness, X-ray luminosity or the Sunyaev-Zeldovich signal. Projection effects are a particularly pernicious systematic effect that can impact observable mass proxies; structure along the line of sight can both bias and increase the scatter of the observable mass proxies used in cluster abundance studies. In this work, we develop an empirical method to characterize the impact of projection effects on redMaPPer cluster …
Future galaxy surveys require realistic mock catalogues to understand and quantify systematics in order to make precise cosmological measurements. We present a halo lightcone catalogue and halo occupation distribution (HOD) galaxy catalogue built using the Millennium-XXL (MXXL) simulation. The halo catalogue covers the full sky, extending to z = 2 with a mass resolution of ~1e11 Msun/h . We use this to build a galaxy catalogue, which has an r-band magnitude limit of r < 20.0, with a median redshift of z~0.2. A Monte Carlo HOD method is used to assign galaxies to the halo lightcone catalogue, a…
We discuss the universality and self-similarity of void density profiles, for voids in realistic mock luminous red galaxy (LRG) catalogues from the Jubilee simulation, as well as in void catalogues constructed from the SDSS LRG and Main Galaxy samples. Voids are identified using a modified version of the ZOBOV watershed transform algorithm, with additional selection cuts. We find that voids in simulation are self-similar, meaning that their average rescaled profile does not depend on the void size, or -- within the range of the simulated catalogue -- on the redshift. Comparison of the profiles…
We extend the catalogue of two-dimensional, PSF-corrected de Vacouleurs, Sersic, de Vacouleurs+Exponential, and Sersic+Exponential fits of ~7x10^5 galaxies presented in Meert, Vikram & Bernardi (2015) to include the g- and i-bands. Fits are analysed using the physically motivated flagging system presented in the original text, making adjustments for the differing signal-to-noise when necessary. We compare the fits in each of the g-, r-, and i-bands. Fixed aperture magnitudes and colours are also provided for all galaxies. The catalogues are available in electronic format.
