SearcharxivSearch

arXiv · 0801.2613

Searching for dust in the intracluster medium from reddening of background galaxies

Abstract

We report a search for the presence of dust in the intra-cluster medium based on the study of statistical reddening of background galaxies. Armed with the Red Sequence Cluster survey data, from which we extracted (i) a catalog of 458 clusters with z_clust < 0.5 and (ii) a catalog of ~90,000 galaxies with photometric redshift 0.5 < z_ph < 0.8 and photometric redshift uncertainty delta z_ph / (1+z_ph) < 0.06, we have constructed several samples of galaxies according to their projected distances to the cluster centers. No significant color differences [ = 0.005 pm 0.008, and = 0.000 pm 0.008] were found for galaxies background to the clusters, compared to the references. Assuming a Galactic extinction law, we derive an average visual extinction of = 0.004 pm 0.010 towards the inner 1x R_200 of clusters.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Sebastien Muller, Szu-Ying Wu, Bau-Ching Hsieh, Rosa Gonzalez, Laurent Loinard, Howard Yee, Mike Gladders. 2008-01-17. Searching for dust in the intracluster medium from reddening of background galaxies. https://doi.org/10.1086/529583

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

2MTF I. The Tully-Fisher Relation in the 2MASS J, H and K Bands

The 2 Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) Tully-Fisher Survey (2MTF) aims to measure Tully-Fisher (TF) distances to all bright inclined spirals in the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS). Essential to this project is a universal calibration of the TF relation in the 2MASS J (1.2 um), H (1.6 um) and K (2.2 um) bands. We present the first bias corrected or universal TF template in these bands. We find that the slope of the TF relation becomes steeper as the wavelength increases being close to L \propto v^4 in K-band and L \propto v^3.6 in J and H-bands. We also investigate the dependence on galaxy morphology showing that in all three bands the relation is steeper for later type spirals which also have a dimmer TF zeropoint than earlier type spirals. We correct the final relation to that for Sc galaxies. Finally we study the scatter from the TF relation fitting for a width dependent intrinsic scatter which is not found to vary significantly with wavelength.

astro-ph

Effect of Peculiar Motion in Weak Lensing

We study the effect of peculiar motion in weak gravitational lensing. We derive a fully relativistic formula for the cosmic shear and the convergence in a perturbed Friedmann Universe. We find a new contribution related to galaxies peculiar velocity. This contribution does not affect cosmic shear in a measurable way, since it is of second order in the velocity. However, its effect on the convergence (and consequently on the magnification, which is a measurable quantity) is important, especially for redshifts z < 1. As a consequence, peculiar motion modifies also the relation between the shear and the convergence.

astro-ph

Modifying gravity with the Aether: an alternative to Dark Matter

There is evidence that Newton and Einstein's theories of gravity cannot explain the dynamics of a universe made up solely of baryons and radiation. To be able to understand the properties of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and the universe on the whole it has become commonplace to invoke the presence of dark matter. An alternative approach is to modify the gravitational field equations to accommodate observations. We propose a new class of gravitational theories in which we add a new degree of freedom, the Aether, in the form of a vector field that is coupled covariantly, but non-minimally, with the space-time metric. We explore the Newtonian and non-Newtonian limits, discuss the conditions for these theories to be consistent and explore their effect on cosmology.

astro-ph