The realm of the galaxy protoclusters

By R. Overzier. 2016

210 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The study of galaxy protoclusters is beginning to fill in unknown details of the important phase of the assembly of clusters and cluster galaxies. This review describes the current status of this field and highlights promising recent findings related to galaxy formation in the densest regions of the early universe. We discuss the main search techniques and the characteristic properties of protoclusters in observations and simulations, and show that protoclusters will have present-day masses similar to galaxy clusters when fully collapsed. We discuss the physical properties of galaxies in protoclusters, including (proto-)brightest cluster galaxies, and the forming red sequence. We highlight the fact that the most massive halos at high redshift are found in protoclusters, making these objects uniquely suited for testing important recent models of galaxy formation. We show that galaxies in protoclusters should be among the first galaxies at high redshift making the transition from a gas cooling regime dominated by cold streams to a regime dominated by hot intracluster gas, which could be tested observationally. We also discuss the possible connections between protoclusters and radio galaxies, quasars, and $$\hbox {Ly}\alpha $$Lyα blobs. Because of their early formation, large spatial sizes and high total star-formation rates, protoclusters have also likely played a crucial role during the epoch of reionization, which can be tested with future experiments that will map the neutral and ionized cosmic web. Lastly, we review a number of promising observational projects that are expected to make significant impact in this growing, exciting field.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/363b5b216a4e3e03ba2fdc43a5b6c0595fdf4d33

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. A. Cooray
2. R. Ivison
3. D. Narayanan
4. D. Riechers
5. H. Dannerbauer
6. L. Hernquist
7. R. Overzier
8. C. Casey

In Instrumentation

1. A. Cooray
2. R. Overzier
3. A. Omont
4. H. Dannerbauer
5. D. Scott
6. R. Ivison
7. A. Weiss
8. P. Werf

Citations in the corpus

• An Extreme Protocluster of Luminous Dusty Starbursts in the Early Universe (2017, background): “All this highlights the importance of protoclusters in the early universe for our understanding of galaxy and structure formation and hierarchical growth (Overzier 2016).”
• Galaxy Protoclusters as Drivers of Cosmic Star Formation History in the First 2 Gyr (2017, background): “At z ∼ 2–6, a few dozen structures have been found that resemble the general properties of protoclusters expected during the second phase (see a review in Overzier 2016).”