Detailed analysis of a large, dedicated sample of HST clusters

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Matthias Bartelmann
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: from 2011 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 182811170

• Final Report Year: 2016

Final Report Abstract

The CLASH project set out to measure density profiles of 25 galaxy clusters as accurately as possible to compare them with the universal density profiles found in numerical simulations. We have participated in this project and in parallel developed a suite of new methods for joint and non-parametric analyses of gravitational-lensing data with all other cluster observables. The main results obtained so far are that the data of the CLASH clusters, which are of the highest quality available today, qualitatively as well as quantitatively confirm the expectations from the cosmological standard model. They thus corroborate the fundamental importance of the universality found in numerical simulations of cosmic structure growth, and they refute the previously frequent claims of contradictions between the observed population of massive galaxy clusters and the standard ΛCDM cosmology. Our new methods developed in the course of this programme will now allow us to continue with a non-parametric, joint analysis of gravitational-lensing together with X-ray, galaxykinematics and thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich data for all CLASH clusters, testing for hydrostatic equilibrium, non-thermal pressure support, anisotropy of galaxy orbits and possibly deviations from general relativity.

Publications

• CLASH: The Concentration-Mass Relation of Galaxy Clusters. ApJ, 806:4, June 2015
  J. Merten, M. Meneghetti, M. Postman, K. Umetsu, A. Zitrin, E. Medezinski, M. Nonino, A. Koekemoer, P. Melchior, D. Gruen, L. A. Moustakas, M. Bartelmann, O. Host, M. Donahue, D. Coe, A. Molino, S. Jouvel, A. Monna, S. Seitz, N. Czakon, D. Lemze, J. Sayers, I. Balestra, P. Rosati, N. Benítez, A. Biviano, R. Bouwens, L. Bradley, T. Broadhurst, M. Carrasco, H. Ford, C. Grillo, L. Infante, D. Kelson, O. Lahav, R. Massey, J. Moustakas, E. Rasia, J. Rhodes, J. Vega, and W. Zheng
  
• The strongest gravitational lenses. II. Is the large Einstein radius of MACS J0717.5+3745 in conflict with ΛCDM? A&A, 547:A67, November 2012
  J.-C. Waizmann, M. Redlich, and M. Bartelmann
  
• Joint reconstruction of the mass distributions of galaxy clusters from gravitational lensing and thermal gas. PhD thesis, Heidelberg University, 2014
  C. L. Majer
  
• An algorithm for the reconstruction of the projected gravitational potential of galaxy clusters from galaxy kinematics. PhD thesis, Heidelberg University, 2015
  E. Sarli-Waizmann
  
• Hubble Space Telescope Combined Strong and Weak Lensing Analysis of the CLASH Sample: Mass and Magnification Models and Systematic Uncertainties. ApJ, 801:44, March 2015
  A. Zitrin, A. Fabris, J. Merten, P. Melchior, M. Meneghetti, A. Koekemoer, D. Coe, M. Maturi, M. Bartelmann, M. Postman, K. Umetsu, G. Seidel, I. Sendra, T. Broadhurst, I. Balestra, A. Biviano, C. Grillo, A. Mercurio, M. Nonino, P. Rosati, L. Bradley, M. Carrasco, M. Donahue, H. Ford, B. L. Frye, and J. Moustakas
  
• Probing the Matter Distribution on Intermediate and Large Scales with Weak Light Deflections. PhD thesis, Heidelberg University, 2015
  B. Zieser
  
• Reconstructing the projected gravitational potential of Abell 1689 from X-ray measurements. A&A, 574:A122, February 2015
  C. Tchernin, C. L. Majer, S. Meyer, E. Sarli, D. Eckert, and M. Bartelmann
  
• The projected gravitational potential of the galaxy cluster MACS J1206 derived from galaxy kinematics. A&A, 584:A63, December 2015
  D. Stock, S. Meyer, E. Sarli, M. Bartelmann, I. Balestra, C. Grillo, A. Koekemoer, A. Mercurio, M. Nonino, and P. Rosati