The C4 Clustering Algorithm: Clusters of Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

By C. J. Miller, Robert Nichol, D. Reichart, Risa Wechsler, August E. Evrard, James Annis, T. McKay, N. Bahcall, Mariangela Bernardi, H. Boehringer and 8 more. 2005

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We present the C4 Cluster Catalog, a new sample of 748 clusters of galaxies identified in the spectroscopic sample of the Second Data Release (DR2) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The C4 cluster-finding algorithm identifies clusters as overdensities in a seven-dimensional position and color space, thus minimizing projection effects that have plagued previous optical cluster selection. The present C4 catalog covers ∼2600 deg2 of sky and ranges in redshift from z = 0.02 to 0.17. The mean cluster membership is 36 galaxies (with measured redshifts) brighter than r = 17.7, but the catalog includes a range of systems, from groups containing 10 members to massive clusters with over 200 cluster members with measured redshifts. The catalog provides a large number of measured cluster properties including sky location, mean redshift, galaxy membership, summed r-band optical luminosity (Lr), and velocity dispersion, as well as quantitative measures of substructure and the surrounding large-scale environment. We use new, multicolor mock SDSS galaxy catalogs, empirically constructed from the ΛCDM Hubble Volume (HV) Sky Survey output, to investigate the sensitivity of the C4 catalog to the various algorithm parameters (detection threshold, choice of passbands, and search aperture), as well as to quantify the purity and completeness of the C4 cluster catalog. These mock catalogs indicate that the C4 catalog is ≃90% complete and 95% pure above M200 = 1 × 1014 h-1 M⊙ and within 0.03 ≤ z ≤ 0.12. Using the SDSS DR2 data, we show that the C4 algorithm finds 98% of X-ray–identified clusters and 90% of Abell clusters within 0.03 ≤ z ≤ 0.12. Using the mock galaxy catalogs and the full HV dark matter simulations, we show that the Lr of a cluster is a more robust estimator of the halo mass (M200) than the galaxy line-of-sight velocity dispersion or the richness of the cluster. However, if we exclude clusters embedded in complex large-scale environments, we find that the velocity dispersion of the remaining clusters is as good an estimator of M200 as Lr. The final C4 catalog will contain ≃2500 clusters using the full SDSS data set and will represent one of the largest and most homogeneous samples of local clusters.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

CIRS: Cluster Infall Regions in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. Infall Patterns and Mass Profiles (2006, background): “Miller et al. (2005) construct a cluster catalog by locating overdensities in position and color within SDSS DR2.”
Physical properties and environments of nearby galaxies (2009, background): “…results suffer from two major systematic effects First, there are some significant ambiguities in defining a “BCG”, particularly for cluster catalogs (e.g., Miller et al. 2005) based on an incomplete redshift survey like the SDSS (even 5%–10% incompleteness matters; see von der Linden et al. 2007).”
Percolation Galaxy Groups and Clusters in the SDSS Redshift Survey: Identification, Catalogs, and the Multiplicity Function (2006, methodology): “Miller et al. (2005) developed the C4 algorithm for finding clusters in redshift space and also applied it to the SDSS DR2.”
Dependence of galaxy quenching on halo mass and distance from its centre (2012, background): “However, these authors use the C4 Cluster Catalog of Miller et al. (2005) which does not include isolated galaxies.”
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Sunyaev-Zel'dovich selected galaxy clusters at 148 GHz from three seasons of data (2013, methodology): “There is a long history of using optical (e.g., Abell 1958; Lumsden et al. 1992; Goto et al. 2002; Lopes et al. 2004; Miller et al. 2005; Koester et al. 2007; Hao et al. 2010; Szabo et al. 2011; Wen et al. 2009, 2012) and X-ray (e.g., Henry et al. 1992; Böhringer et al. 2004; Burenin et al. 2007;…”
A MaxBCG Catalog of 13,823 Galaxy Clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2007, background): “…in their full environment of filaments and voids, and provide realistic estimates of both the spatial and dynamical structure of the cluster galaxy population (White et al. 2002; Kochanek et al. 2003; Eke et al. 2004; Miller et al. 2005; Yang et al. 2005; Gerke et al. 2005; Wechsler et al. 2006).”
The build-up of the colour-magnitude relation in galaxy clusters since z ~ 0.8 (2006, background): “The basis for the cluster sample used here is the C4 cluster catalogue by Miller et al. (2005).”
On the efficiency and reliability of cluster mass estimates based on member galaxies (2006, methodology): “Moreover, with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey coming to completion (e.g. Abazajian et al. 2005), a large number of nearby clusters with ≥ 30 galaxies with redshifts is now available (Miller et al. 2005).”
CALIFA : a diameter-selected sample for an integral field spectroscopy galaxy survey (2014, background): “…loose groups and clusters found in the literature (White et al. 1997; Aguerri et al. 2007; Hernández-Fernández et al. 2012; Mahdavi & Geller 2001; Miller et al. 2005; Popesso et al. 2007; Shen et al. 2008; Garcia 1993; Mahtessian & Movsessian 2010; Tago et al. 2010; Crook et al. 2007; Mahdavi &…”
Star formation and AGN activity in SDSS cluster galaxies (2009, methodology): “This cluster sample is derived from the C4 cluster catalog by Miller et al. (2005), but special attention was paid in selecting the Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG) as the galaxy to be most likely to be at the center of the cluster potential well.”
The XMM Cluster Survey:Optical analysis methodology and the first data release (2011, methodology): “This map is based on the slope of the composite red-sequence of 73 clusters at z ∼ 0.1 detected by the SDSS-C4 survey (Miller et al. 2005), which is then evolved with redshift using the Bruzual & Charlot (2003) population synthesis models assuming a single-burst Salpeter IMF with a formation…”
A GMBCG GALAXY CLUSTER CATALOG OF 55,424 RICH CLUSTERS FROM SDSS DR7 (2010, methodology): “This color information is the primary tool to determine the 1When spectroscopic redshifts are available, other algorithms have been developed, for example, Berlind et al. (2006); Yang et al. (2007); Miller et al. (2005).”
The X-Ray Luminosity-Mass Relation for Local Clusters of Galaxies (2006, background): “The large number statistics offered by nearby optical cluster catalogs from SDSS (Bahcall et al. 2003; Miller et al. 2005; Koester 2006) and 2dF (Padilla et al. 2004), when matched with existing and forthcoming archival X-ray data, should ultimately be exploited for this exercise.”
Clusters of Galaxies in the First Half of the Universe from the IRAC Shallow Survey (2008, background): “The SDSS C4 technique (Miller et al. 2005) does not require a red sequence, but it does demand that the colors of cluster galaxies are similar to one another.”
The Fourth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2005, background): “…a number of value-added catalogs of SDSS data, including galaxies (Blanton et al. 2005a), quasars (Schneider et al. 2005), clusters of galaxies (Miller et al. 2005), compact groups (Lee et al. 2004), merging galaxies (Allam et al. 2004), white dwarf stars (Kleinman et al. 2004), and asteroids…”
Observational probes of cosmic acceleration (2012, background): “2 (Merchán and Zandivarez, 2002; Kochanek et al., 2003; Miller et al., 2005; Merchán and Zandivarez, 2005; Berlind et al., 2006; Yang et al., 2007; Li and Yee, 2008; Blackburne and Kochanek, 2011), though high redshift spectroscopic catalogs do exist (Gerke et al.”
How special are Brightest Group and Cluster Galaxies (2006, methodology): “The basis of our cluster sample is the C4 cluster catalog (Miller et al. 2005).”