2006/02/11 by G. P. Holder, Holder, Gilbert
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Gaussian Processes and Bayesian Inference
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0602251
openalex publication_date 2006/02/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Galaxy cluster surveys offer great promise for measuring cosmological parameters, but survey analysis methods have not been widely studied. Using methods developed decades ago for galaxy clustering studies, it is shown that nearly exact likelihood functions can be written down for galaxy cluster surveys. The sparse sampling of the density field by galaxy clusters allows simplifications that are not possible for galaxy surveys. An application to counts in cells is explicitly tested using cluster catalogs from numerical simulations and it is found that the calculated probability distributions are very accurate at masses above several times 1014h-1 solar masses at z=0 and lower masses at higher redshift.