We are able to extend the investigation of the color-morphology-density-radius relations, for bright and faint galaxies, to $R gtrsim 3 times R_{200}$ and to very low density regions, probing the transition region between cluster and field galaxies,
and finding a smooth variation between these two populations. We investigate the environmental variation of galaxy properties (and their relations), such as color, spectral type and concentration. Our sample comprises 6,415 galaxies that were previously selected as cluster members from 152 systems with $z le 0.100$. Our main findings are: (i) The fraction of discs is generally higher than the ones for blue and star-forming galaxies, indicating a faster transformation of color and star-formation compared to structural parameters. (ii) Regarding the distance to the cluster center we find a small variation in the galaxy populations outside the virial radius. Once within that radius the fractions of each population change fast, decreasing even faster within $R sim 0.3 times R_{200}$. (iii) We also find a small increase in the fraction of blue faint galaxies within $R sim 0.4 times R_{200}$, before decreasing again to the most central bin. (iv) Our results do not indicate a significant dependence on cluster mass, except for the disc fraction in the core of clusters. (v) The relations between galaxy properties also point to no dependence on cluster mass, except for the scatter of the color stellar mass relation. Our results corroborate a scenario on which pre-processing in groups leads to a strong evolution in galaxy properties, before they are accreted by large clusters (abridged).
We analyse the Fundamental Plane (FP) relation of $39,993$ early-type galaxies (ETGs) in the optical (griz) and $5,080$ ETGs in the Near-Infrared (YJHK) wavebands, forming an optical$+$NIR sample of $4,589$ galaxies. We focus on the analysis of the F
P as a function of the environment where galaxies reside. We characterise the environment using the largest group catalogue, based on 3D data, generated from SDSS at low redshift ($z < 0.1$). We find that the intercept $``c$ of the FP decreases smoothly from high to low density regions, implying that galaxies at low density have on average lower mass-to-light ratios than their high-density counterparts. The $``c$ also decreases as a function of the mean characteristic mass of the parent galaxy group. However, this trend is weak and completely accounted for by the variation of $``c$ with local density. The variation of the FP offset is the same in all wavebands, implying that ETGs at low density have younger luminosity-weighted ages than cluster galaxies, consistent with the expectations of semi-analytical models of galaxy formation. We measure an age variation of $sim 0.048$~dex ($sim 11%$) per decade of local galaxy density. This implies an age difference of about $32 %$ ($sim 3 , Gyr$) between galaxies in the regions of highest density and the field. We find the metallicity decreasing, at $sim 2$~$sigma$, from low to high density. We also find $2.5 , sigma$ evidence that the variation in age per decade of local density augments, up to a factor of two, for galaxies residing in massive relative to poor groups. (abridged)
We use SDSS data to investigate the scaling relations of 127 NoSOCS and 56 CIRS galaxy clusters at low redshift ($z le 0.10$). We show that richness and both optical and X-ray luminosities are reliable mass proxies. The scatter in mass at fixed obser
vable is $sim$ 40%, depending on the aperture, sample and observable considered. For example, for the massive CIRS systems $sigma_{lnM500|N500}$ = 0.33 $pm$ 0.05 and $sigma_{lnM500|Lx}$ = 0.48 $pm$ 0.06. For the full sample $sigma_{lnM500|N500}$ = 0.43 $pm$ 0.03 and $sigma_{lnM500|Lx}$ = 0.56 $pm$ 0.06. We estimate substructure using two and three dimensional optical data, verifying that substructure has no significant effect on the cluster scaling relations (intercepts and slopes), independent of which substructure test we use. For a subset of twenty-one clusters, we estimate masses from the M-T$_X$ relation using temperature measures from BAX. The scaling relations derived from the optical and X-ray masses are indeed very similar, indicating that our method consistently estimates the cluster mass and yields equivalent results regardless of the wavelength from which we measure mass. For massive systems, we represent the mass-richness relation by a function with the form ${rm ln (M_{200}) = A + B times ln(N_{200}/60)}$, with M$_{200}$ being expressed in units of 10$^{14}$ M$_{odot}$. Using the virial mass, for CIRS clusters, we find A = (1.39 $pm$ 0.07) and B = (1.00 $pm$ 0.11). The relations based on the virial mass have a scatter of $sigma_{lnM200|N200}$ = 0.37 $pm$ 0.05, while $sigma_{lnM200|N200}$ = 0.77 $pm$ 0.22 for the caustic mass and $sigma_{lnM200|N200}$ = 0.34 $pm$ 0.08 for the temperature based mass (abridged).
We present the complete galaxy cluster catalog from the Northern Sky Optical Cluster Survey, a new, objectively defined catalog of candidate galaxy clusters at z<0.25 drawn from the Digitized Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (DPOSS). The data pr
esented here cover the Southern Galactic Cap, as well as the less-well calibrated regions of the Northern Galactic Cap. In addition, due to improvements in our cluster finder and measurement methods, we provide an updated catalog for the well-calibrated Northern Galactic Cap region previously published in Paper II. The complete survey covers 11,411 square degrees, with over 15,000 candidate clusters. We discuss improved photometric redshifts, richnesses and optical luminosities which are provided for each cluster. A variety of substructure measures are computed for a subset of over 11,000 clusters. We also discuss the derivation of dynamical radii r_200 and its relation to cluster richness. A number of consistency checks between the three areas of the survey are also presented, demonstrating the homogeneity of the catalog over disjoint sky areas. We perform extensive comparisons to existing optically and X-ray selected cluster catalogs, and derive new X-ray luminosities and temperatures for a subset of our clusters. We find that the optical and X-ray luminosities are well correlated, even using relatively shallow ROSAT All Sky Survey and DPOSS data. This survey provides a good comparison sample to the MaxBCG catalog based on Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data, and complements that survey at low redshifts 0.07<z<0.1.
We use Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data to investigate galaxy cluster properties of systems first detected within DPOSS. With the high quality photometry of SDSS we derived new photometric redshifts and estimated richness and optical luminosity.
For a subset of low redshift ($z le 0.1$) clusters, we have used SDSS spectroscopic data to identify groups in redshift space in the region of each cluster, complemented with massive systems from the literature to assure the continuous mass sampling. A method to remove interlopers is applied, and a virial analysis is performed resulting in estimates of velocity dispersion, mass, and a physical radius for each low-$z$ system. We discuss the choice of maximum radius and luminosity range in the dynamical analysis, showing that a spectroscopic survey must be complete to at least M$^*+1$ if one wishes to obtain accurate and unbiased estimates of velocity dispersion and mass. We have measured X-ray luminosity for all clusters using archival data from RASS. For a smaller subset (twenty-one clusters) we selected temperature measures from the literature and estimated mass from the M-T$_X$ relation, finding that they show good agreement with the virial estimate. However, these two mass estimates tend to disagree with the caustic results. We measured the presence of substructure in all clusters of the sample and found that clusters with substructure have virial masses higher than those derived from T$_X$. This trend is not seen when comparing the caustic and X-ray masses. That happens because the caustic mass is estimated directly from the mass profile, so it is less affected by substructure.
In this work I discuss the necessary steps for deriving photometric redshifts for luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and galaxy clusters through simple empirical methods. The data used is from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). I show that with three ban
ds only ({it gri}) it is possible to achieve results as accurate as the ones obtained by other techniques, generally based on more filters. In particular, the use of the $(g-i)$ color helps improving the final redshifts (especially for clusters), as this color monotonically increases up to $z sim 0.8$. For the LRGs I generate a catalog of $sim 1.5$ million objects at $z < 0.70$. The accuracy of this catalog is $sigma = 0.027$ for $z le 0.55$ and $sigma = 0.049$ for $0.55 < z le 0.70$. The photometric redshift technique employed for clusters is independent of a cluster selection algorithm. Thus, it can be applied to systems selected by any method or wavelength, as long as the proper optical photometry is available. When comparing the redshift listed in literature to the photometric estimate, the accuracy achieved for clusters is $sigma = 0.024$ for $z le 0.30$ and $sigma = 0.037$ for $030 < z le 0.55$. However, when considering the spectroscopic redshift as the mean value of SDSS galaxies on each cluster region, the accuracy is at the same level as found by other authors: $sigma = 0.011$ for $z le 0.30$ and $sigma = 0.016$ for $030 < z le 0.55$. The photometric redshift relation derived here is applied to thousands of cluster candidates selected elsewhere. I have also used galaxy photometric redshifts available in SDSS to identify groups in redshift space and then compare the redshift peak of the nearest group to each cluster redshift (ABRIDGED).
