A New Method For Galaxy Cluster Detection. I. The Algorithm

By M. Gladders, H. Yee. 2000

505 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Numerous methods for finding clusters at moderate to high redshifts have been proposed in recent years, at wavelengths ranging from radio to X-rays. In this paper we describe a new method for detecting clusters in two-band optical/near-IR imaging data. The method relies upon the observation that all rich clusters, at all redshifts observed so far, appear to have a red sequence of early-type galaxies. The emerging picture is that all rich clusters contain a core population of passively evolving elliptical galaxies that are coeval and formed at high redshifts. The proposed search method exploits this strong empirical fact by using the red sequence as a direct indicator of overdensity. The fundamental advantage of this approach is that with appropriate filters, cluster elliptical galaxies at a given redshift are redder than all normal galaxies at lower redshifts. A simple color cut thus virtually eliminates all foreground contamination, even at significant redshifts. In this paper, one of a series of two, we describe the underlying assumptions and basic techniques of the method in detail and contrast the method with those used by other authors. We provide a brief demonstration of the effectiveness of the technique using a real photometric sample with redshift data, and from this we conclude that the method offers a powerful yet simple way of identify galaxy clusters. We find that the method can reliably detect structures to masses as small as groups with velocity dispersions of only ∼300 km s-1, with redshifts for all detected structures estimated to an accuracy of ∼10%.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/59698e7f001fe8cf0349d69993040918667511ee

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

In Instrumentation

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

Citations in the corpus

THE EVOLUTION OF X-RAY CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES (2002, methodology): “Gladders & Yee (2000) applied the same technique in a systematic fashion to carry out a large area survey in R and z bands (the Red Sequence Survey), which is currently underway and promises to unveil rare, very massive clusters out to z ∼ 1.”
Virial Masses and the Baryon Fraction in Galaxies (2005, methodology): “This choice of filters allows for the detection of clusters up to z ∼ 1.4 using the cluster red-sequence method developed by Gladders & Yee (2000).”
GALAXY CLUSTERS DISCOVERED VIA THE SUNYAEV–ZEL'DOVICH EFFECT IN THE 2500-SQUARE-DEGREE SPT-SZ SURVEY (2014, background): “Clusters identified in this manner typically contain of tens to thousands of galaxies (e.g., Abell 1958; Gladders & Yee 2000; Koester et al. 2007; Eisenhardt et al. 2008; Wen et al. 2012; Rykoff et al. 2014).”
The C4 Clustering Algorithm: Clusters of Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2005, methodology): “The figure also illustrates that this “red sequence” of galaxies is present in all four SDSS colors and not just in the one color system used by Gladders & Yee (2000).”
Galaxy evolution in groups and clusters: satellite star formation histories and quenching time-scales in a hierarchical Universe (2012, methodology): “…more likely to lie on the red sequence, many methods for identifying galaxy groups/clusters rely on selecting red-sequence galaxies (e.g., Gladders & Yee 2000; Koester et al. 2007), so a detailed understanding of the systematics of these methods requires characterizing the timescale over…”
redMaPPer. I. ALGORITHM AND SDSS DR8 CATALOG (2013, background): “…Durret et al. 2011; Szabo et al. 2011; Soares-Santos et al. 2011; Wen et al. 2012), and those utilizing the cluster red-sequence (e.g., Annis et al. 1999; Gladders & Yee 2000; Koester et al. 2007a; Gladders et al. 2007; Gal et al. 2009; Thanjavur et al. 2009; Hao et al. 2010b; Murphy et al. 2012).”
The clustering of luminous red galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging data (2006, background): “The usefulness of LRGs as a cosmological probe has long been appreciated (Gladders & Yee 2000; Eisenstein et al. 2001).”
The accretion of galaxies into groups and clusters (2009, methodology): “Although, given our results, they may be difficult to find using the popular and efficient red sequence method (Gladders & Yee 2000; Lu et al. 2009).”
Galaxy Star Formation as a Function of Environment in the Early Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2002, unknown): “This non-parametric approach significantly reduces the risk of biasing our cluster sample because we are not modeling the expected colors of the cluster galaxy population (Gladders & Yee 2000; Goto et al. 2002).”
Detection of large-scale intrinsic ellipticity—density correlation from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and implications for weak lensing surveys (2005, background): “A variety of algorithms exist to identify clusters and their BCGs (e.g. Gladders & Yee 2000; Goto et al. 2002; Bahcall et al. 2003), and it is beyond the scope of this paper to examine how much the density-shape correlation can be suppressed by rejecting BCGs selected by each of these methods.”
ROBUST OPTICAL RICHNESS ESTIMATION WITH REDUCED SCATTER (2011, background): “The red sequence is well suited to cluster finding due to its high contrast with the background and its strong redshift dependence (e.g., Bower et al. 1992; Gladders & Yee 2000; Koester et al. 2007a).”
Tracing cosmic evolution with clusters of galaxies (2004, methodology): “The colors of their aging stellar populations therefore place these cluster members on a narrow and distinctive locus, known as the “red sequence,” in a plot of galaxy color versus magnitude ssee, for example, Gladders and Yee, 2000d.”
Galaxy ecology: groups and low-density environments in the SDSS and 2dFGRS (2003, methodology): “Note that this is not a red-sequence finder (e.g. Gladders & Yee 2000), and will detect groups of blue galaxies if they have similar colours.”
Clusters of Galaxies in the First Half of the Universe from the IRAC Shallow Survey (2008, methodology): “The Red Sequence Cluster Survey (Gladders & Yee 2000, 2005) uses the observed color-magnitude relationship in cluster galaxies to improve the contrast and has proven highly efficient to z 1, but the optical colors of the red sequence become increasingly degenerate at higher redshifts, as they no lon”
The Evolution of Population Gradients in Galaxy Clusters: The Butcher-Oemler Effect and Cluster Infall (2000, background): “…of new surveys for high-redshift clusters are amassing large numbers of both fainter X-ray clusters and optically selected clusters (e.g., Zaritsky et al. 1997 ; Holden et al. 1999 ; Scharf et al. 1996 ; Rosati et al. 1998 ; Kim et al. 1999 ; Lewis, Stocke, & Ellingson 1999 ; Gladders & Yee 2000).”
GALAXY CLUSTERS IDENTIFIED FROM THE SDSS DR6 AND THEIR PROPERTIES (2009, methodology): “To reduce projection effect, several methods have been developed to search for clusters in multicolor photometric data and have been successfully used to the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (Gladders & Yee 2000, 2005) and the SDSS (Goto et al. 2002a; Miller et al. 2005; Koester et al. 2007a).”
The XMM Cluster Survey:Optical analysis methodology and the first data release (2011, methodology): “In this paper we have relied heavily on the red-sequence, or colour–magnitude relation (CMR), technique to derive photometric redshifts using one colour (r−z) CCD imaging (Ostrander et al. 1998; Gladders & Yee 2000; López-Cruz et al. 2004).”