Abstract

We present follow-up spectroscopic observations of galaxy clusters from the first Red-sequence Cluster Survey (RCS-1). This work focuses on two samples, a lower redshift sample of ∼30 clusters ranging in redshift from z ∼ 0.2–0.6 observed with multiobject spectroscopy (MOS) on 4–6.5-m class telescopes and a z ∼ 1 sample of ∼10 clusters 8-m class telescope observations. We examine the detection efficiency and redshift accuracy of the now widely used red-sequence technique for selecting clusters via overdensities of red-sequence galaxies. Using both these data and extended samples including previously published RCS-1 spectroscopy and spectroscopic redshifts from SDSS, we find that the red-sequence redshift using simple two-filter cluster photometric redshifts is accurate to σz ≈ 0.035(1 + z) in RCS-1. This accuracy can potentially be improved with better survey photometric calibration. For the lower redshift sample, ∼5 per cent of clusters show some (minor) contamination from secondary systems with the same red-sequence intruding into the measurement aperture of the original cluster. At z ∼ 1, the rate rises to ∼20 per cent. Approximately ten  per cent of projections are expected to be serious, where the two components contribute significant numbers of their red-sequence galaxies to another cluster. Finally, we present a preliminary study of the mass–richness calibration using velocity dispersions to probe the dynamical masses of the clusters. We find a relation broadly consistent with that seen in the local universe from the WINGS sample at z ∼ 0.05.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-9-2018

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, v. 476, issue 2, p. 1991-2012.

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2018 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

The copyright holders have granted the permission for posting the article here.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty355

Funding Information

Support for LFB and TA is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism’s Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. LI and LFB are in part supported by CONICYT-Chile grant Basal-CATA PFB-06/2007. HKCY acknowledge support for this project from a Discovery Grant from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and grants from the Canada Research Chair Program.

Due to the large number of funding sources, only the first few are listed in this section. For the complete list of funding sources, please download this article.

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