scholarly journals Testing Cosmological Models with Clusters of Galaxies

1999 ◽  
Vol 183 ◽  
pp. 221-228
Author(s):  
S. Gottlöber ◽  
J. Retzlaff ◽  
A. Klypin

Currently little is known about the mass distribution on intermediate scales between those probed by deep redshift surveys of galaxies and those probed by COBE. Catalogs of galaxy clusters reach depths of several hundred megaparsecs, and, thus, are very useful for those scales. Only the Las Campanas Redshift Survey (LCRS) is comparable with that depth. However, the LCRS samples only narrow slices whereas cluster catalogs cover a large fraction of the sky. Clusters seems to be the most suitable objects to fill the gap between scales probed by COBE and the galaxy samples. Moreover, clusters are advantageous over galaxies as probes of the matter distribution in the Universe because our understanding of its formation and evolution is better established than it is for galaxies. Clusters are high peaks (mass scaleM≃ 1015M⊙) in the density field, which have collapsed relatively recently. Because of that, it is easy to identify clusters in numerical simulations. But the number of clusters is much smaller than the number of galaxies, which makes the statistics of clusters noisier. Nevertheless, clusters are exceptionally useful objects for the investigation of the matter distribution on scales well above 100h–1Mpc. Thus, it is worth to apply different statistical tests to these objects.

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 681-683
Author(s):  
L. Nicolaci da Costa

Redshift surveys of galaxies have been over the past decade the major source of information for studies of the large-scale structure of the Universe. Following the completion of the original CfA Redshift Survey, several groups have joined the endeavor, probing different regions of the sky to different depths in a remarkable long-term effort to study the nature of the galaxy distribution and its statistical properties at different scales. Here I summarize the current status of the ongoing surveys drawn from optical galaxy catalogs. The review is not intended to be complete but rather to demonstrate the vitality of the area and to point out that exciting new data should be forthcoming in the next few years.


2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Sepp ◽  
E. Tempel ◽  
M. Gramann ◽  
P. Nurmi ◽  
M. Haupt

AbstractThe SDSS galaxy catalog is one of the best databases for galaxy distribution studies. The SDSS DR8 data is used to construct the galaxy cluster catalog. We construct the clusters from the calculated luminosity density field and identify denser regions. Around these peak regions we construct galaxy clusters. Another interesting question in cosmology is how observable galaxy structures are connected to underlying dark matter distribution. To study this we compare the SDSS DR7 galaxy group catalog with galaxy groups obtained from the semi-analytical Millennium N-Body simulation. Specifically, we compare the group richness, virial radius, maximum separation and velocity dispersion distributions and find a relatively good agreement between the mock catalog and observations. This strongly supports the idea that the dark matter distribution and galaxies in the semi-analytical models and observations are very closely linked.


1980 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 699-714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neta A. Bahcall

AbstractClusters and groups of galaxies contain the majority of galaxies in the universe. The rich clusters, while less numerous than the many poor groups, are the densest and largest systems known, and can be easily recognized and studied even at relatively large distances. Their study is important for understanding the formation and evolution of clusters and galaxies, and for a determination of the large-scale structure in the universe.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (S334) ◽  
pp. 3-10
Author(s):  
John E. Norris

AbstractVery metal-poor stars ([Fe/H] < –2.0) inform our understanding of the formation and evolution of the Galaxy, and the physical conditions in the earliest star-forming environments of the Universe. They play an integral part in the paradigms of stellar populations, stellar archaeology, and near-field cosmology. We review the carbon-rich and carbon-normal sub-populations of the most iron-poor stars, providing insight into chemical enrichment at the earliest times in the Universe. We also discuss the role of very metal-poor stars in providing insight into the Galaxy’s halo, thick disk, and bulge, and the promise they hold for the future. A comparison between the abundances obtained for the nine most Fe-poor stars ([Fe/H] < –4.5) (all but one of which is C-rich) with abundances obtained from far-field cosmology suggests that the former are the most chemically primitive objects yet observed and probably older than the DLA- and sub-DLA systems for which data are currently available from far-field studies.


2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Robotham ◽  
S. P. Driver ◽  
P. Norberg ◽  
I. K. Baldry ◽  
S. P. Bamford ◽  
...  

AbstractA heuristic greedy algorithm is developed for efficiently tiling spatially dense redshift surveys. In its first application to the Galaxy and MassAssembly (GAMA) redshift survey we find it rapidly improves the spatial uniformity of our data, and naturally corrects for any spatial bias introduced by the 2dF multi-object spectrograph. We make conservative predictions for the final state of the GAMA redshift survey after our final allocation of time, and can be confident that even if worse than typical weather affects our observations, all of our main survey requirements will be met.


2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 1771-1777
Author(s):  
HOUJUN MO

Given that dark matter is gravitationally dominant in the universe, and that galaxy formation is closely related to dark matter halos, a key first step in understanding galaxy formation and evolution in the CDM paradigm is to quantify the galaxy-halo connection for galaxies of different properties. Here I will present results about the halo/galaxy connection obtained from two different methods. One is based on the conditional luminosity function, which describes the occupation of galaxies in halos of different masses, and the other is based on galaxy systems properly selected to represent dark halos.


2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 2109-2113
Author(s):  
LUIGI GUZZO

Redshift surveys of galaxies beyond the local Universe (z ≫ 0.1) are opening up new possibilities to understanding the observed acceleration of cosmic expansion, one of the greatest mysteries of modern science. Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations in the galaxy power spectrum (or correlation function), provide us with a standard rod to measure the expansion history H(z). At the same time, redshift-space distortions in the clustering pattern due to galaxy peculiar motions are a measure of the growth rate of structure f(z). The combination of these two quantities, allows us to distinguish whether cosmic acceleration is due to the existence of a "dark energy" in the cosmic budget, or rather requires a modification of General Relativity. These two radically alternative scenarios are degenerate when considering H(z) alone, as yielded, e.g. by the Hubble diagram of Type Ia supernovae. In this short review paper I will mostly concentrate on the latter measurement, whose potential importance in this context has been recently highlighted. Current results are consistent with the simplest GR-based cosmological constant scenario, but error bars are still large. Detailed forecasts show that next-generation deep surveys optimizing the combination of large volumes and good galaxy sampling will be able to use redshift distortions as a key tool to understand the physical origin of cosmic acceleration. Among these, I introduce the newly started VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS) at the ESO VLT, which is building at [Formula: see text] a sample comparable to the local 2dFGRS. Expectations from even larger surveys planned from space-borne observatories such as EUCLID will also be mentioned.


1974 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 93-108
Author(s):  
G. R. Burbidge

An up-dated review is given of the evidence for the presence of intergalactic matter and radiation in the Universe. It is concluded that the only important constituents which may make a sizable contribution to the total mass-energy are intergalactic gas and condensed objects with a very high mass-to-light ratio. If the QSOs are not at cosmological distances, cold atomic hydrogen may still be the most important constituent and may contribute much more mass than do the galaxies. The X-ray observations still do not unambiguously show that very hot gas is present, though it is very likely on general grounds that some hot gas is present in clusters of galaxies.The question of whether or not large amounts of matter, enough to close the Universe, are present, remains unsettled. From the theoretical standpoint the answer depends almost completely on the approach taken to the problem of galaxy formation and to the cosmological model which is favoured.


1977 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Augustus Oemler

Clusters of galaxies are easily identifiable collections of galaxies, all at the same distance and all observed under similar conditions of galactic obscuration, etc. They are, therefore, very convenient samples with which to study the matter content of the universe. However, clusters are also very particular physical environments, and from this latter point of view it is their atypical character which is of interest. The differences in the contents of one cluster from another, and of each from the contents of small groups and the “field” can teach us much about how the properties of galaxies depend on the environments in which they were born and have evolved.Because of the interrelatedness of these two points of view, one cannot really understand the galaxy populations of clusters until one also understands the populations of galaxies which are not in clusters. Therefore, while this review will concentrate on the contents of rich clusters of galaxies, it will also be necessary to discuss the properties of non-cluster galaxies.


1998 ◽  
Vol 179 ◽  
pp. 348-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.J. Smith ◽  
B.J. Boyle ◽  
T. Shanks ◽  
S.M. Croom ◽  
L. Miller ◽  
...  

Observations that radio-quiet QSOs exist in average galaxy cluster environments (Smith et al. 1995 and references therein) demonstrate that QSOs can be used to derive important information on the structure of the Universe at the largest scales. Previous studies of QSO clustering have been frustrated by the lack of large QSO redshift surveys. Although QSO clustering is detected in the largest existing QSO catalogues (see Shanks & Boyle 1994), it is difficult to place strong limits on the cosmological evolution of QSO clustering or the level of clustering at large scales (> 10h–1 Mpc) with current QSO catalogues.


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