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A serendipitous survey for galaxy clusters by the XMM-Newton Survey Science Center |
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| Authors: | AD Schwope G Lamer D Burke M Elvis MG Watson MP Schulze G Szokoly T Urrutia |
| Institution: | aAstrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany bHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA cX-ray Astronomy Group, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK dMax-Planck Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, 85748 Garching, Germany |
| Abstract: | We describe the initial results of a programme to detect and identify extended X-ray sources found serendipitously in XMM-Newton observations. We have analyzed 186 EPIC-PN images at high galactic latitude with a limiting flux of 1 × 10?14 erg cm?2 s?1 and found 62 cluster candidates. Thanks to the enhanced sensitivity of the XMM-Newton telescopes, the new clusters found in this pilot study are on the average fainter, more compact, and more distant than those found in previous X-ray surveys. At our survey limit the surface density of clusters is about 5 deg?2. We also present the first results of an optical follow-up programme aiming at the redshift measurement of a large sample of clusters. The results of this pilot study give a first glimpse on the potential of serendipitous cluster science with XMM-Newton based on real data. The largest, yet to be fulfilled promise is the identification of a large number of high-redshift clusters for cosmological studies up to z = 1 or 1.5. |
| Keywords: | X-rays: surveys Galaxies: clusters Cosmology: large-scale structure |
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