No Arabic abstract
Galaxy cluster surveys provide a powerful means of studying the density and nature of the dark energy. The redshift distribution of detected clusters in a deep, large solid angle SZE or X-ray survey is highly sensitive to the dark energy equation of state. Accurate constraints at the 5% level on the dark energy equation of state require that systematic biases in the mass estimators must be controlled at better than the ~10% level. Observed regularity in the cluster population and the availability of multiple, independent mass estimators suggests these precise measurements are possible. Using hydrodynamical simulations that include preheating, we show that the level of preheating required to explain local galaxy cluster structure has a dramatic effect on X-ray cluster surveys, but only a mild effect on SZE surveys. This suggests that SZE surveys may be optimal for cosmology while X-ray surveys are well suited for studies of the thermal history of the intracluster medium.
We discuss the prospects of constraining the properties of a dark energy component, with particular reference to a time varying equation of state, using future cluster surveys selected by their Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. We compute the number of clusters expected for a given set of cosmological parameters and propogate the errors expected from a variety of surveys. In the short term they will constrain dark energy in conjunction with future observations of type Ia supernovae, but may in time do so in their own right.
We report on the status of our effort to constrain the nature of dark energy through the evolution of the cluster mass function. Chandra temperature profiles for 31 clusters from a local cluster sample are shown. The X-ray appearance of the proto supermassive binary black hole at the center of the cluster Abell 400 is described. Preliminary weak lensing results obtained with Megacam@MMT for a redshift z=0.5 cluster from a distant cluster sample are given.
We perform a detailed forecast on how well a {sc Euclid}-like survey will be able to constrain dark energy and neutrino parameters from a combination of its cosmic shear power spectrum, galaxy power spectrum, and cluster mass function measurements. We find that the combination of these three probes vastly improves the surveys potential to measure the time evolution of dark energy. In terms of a dark energy figure-of-merit defined as $(sigma(w_{mathrm p}) sigma(w_a))^{-1}$, we find a value of 690 for {sc Euclid}-like data combined with {sc Planck}-like measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in a 10-dimensional cosmological parameter space, assuming a $Lambda$CDM fiducial cosmology. For the more commonly used 7-parameter model, we find a figure-of-merit of 1900 for the same data combination. We consider also the surveys potential to measure dark energy perturbations in models wherein the dark energy is parameterised as a fluid with a nonstandard non-adiabatic sound speed, and find that in an emph{optimistic} scenario in which $w_0$ deviates by as much as is currently observationally allowed from $-1$, models with $hat{c}_mathrm{s}^2 = 10^{-6}$ and $hat{c}_mathrm{s}^2 = 1$ can be distinguished at more than $2sigma$ significance. We emphasise that constraints on the dark energy sound speed from cluster measurements are strongly dependent on the modelling of the cluster mass function; significantly weaker sensitivities ensue if we modify our model to include fewer features of nonlinear dark energy clustering. Finally, we find that the sum of neutrino masses can be measured with a $1 sigma$ precision of 0.015~eV, (abridged)
We perform a galaxy-galaxy lensing study by correlating the shapes of $sim$2.7 $times$ 10$^5$ galaxies selected from the VLA FIRST radio survey with the positions of $sim$38.5 million SDSS galaxies, $sim$132000 BCGs and $sim$78000 SDSS galaxies that are also detected in the VLA FIRST survey. The measurements are conducted on angular scales ${theta}$ $lesssim$ 1200 arcsec. On scales ${theta}$ $lesssim$ 200 arcsec we find that the measurements are corrupted by residual systematic effects associated with the instrumental beam of the VLA data. Using simulations we show that we can successfully apply a correction for these effects. Using the three lens samples (the SDSS DR10 sample, the BCG sample and the SDSS-FIRST matched object sample) we measure a tangential shear signal that is inconsistent with zero at the 10${sigma}$, 3.8${sigma}$ and 9${sigma}$ level respectively. Fitting an NFW model to the detected signals we find that the ensemble mass profile of the BCG sample agrees with the values in the literature. However, the mass profiles of the SDSS DR10 and the SDSS-FIRST matched object samples are found to be shallower and steeper than results in the literature respectively. The best-fitting Virial masses for the SDSS DR10, BCG and SDSS-FIRST matched samples, derived using an NFW model and allowing for a varying concentration factor, are M$^{SDSS-DR10}_{200}$ = (1.2 $pm$ 0.4) $times$ 10$^{12}$M$_{odot}$, M$^{BCG}_{200}$ = (1.4 $pm$ 1.3) $times$ 10$^{13}$M$_{odot}$ and M$^{SDSS-FIRST}_{200}$ = 8.0 $pm$ 4.2 $times$ 10$^{13}$M$_{odot}$ respectively. These results are in good agreement (within $sim$2${sigma}$) with values in the literature. Our findings suggest that for galaxies to be both bright in the radio and in the optical they must be embedded in very dense environment on scales R $lesssim$ 1Mpc.
The precision of cosmological parameters derived from galaxy cluster surveys is limited by uncertainty in relating observable signals to cluster mass. We demonstrate that a small mass-calibration follow-up program can significantly reduce this uncertainty and improve parameter constraints, particularly when the follow-up targets are judiciously chosen. To this end, we apply a simulated annealing algorithm to maximize the dark energy information at fixed observational cost, and find that optimal follow-up strategies can reduce the observational cost required to achieve a specified precision by up to an order of magnitude. Considering clusters selected from optical imaging in the Dark Energy Survey, we find that approximately 200 low-redshift X-ray clusters or massive Sunyaev-Zeldovich clusters can improve the dark energy figure of merit by 50%, provided that the follow-up mass measurements involve no systematic error. In practice, the actual improvement depends on (1) the uncertainty in the systematic error in follow-up mass measurements, which needs to be controlled at the 5% level to avoid severe degradation of the results; and (2) the scatter in the optical richness-mass distribution, which needs to be made as tight as possible to improve the efficacy of follow-up observations.