2010/10/31 by Matthew B. Bayliss, Matthew Bayliss, Joseph F. Hennawi +6 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #Cluster (spacecraft) #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy cluster #Physics #Redshift #Sky #Spectroscopy #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Velocity dispersion #Weak gravitational lensing #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0067-0049/193/1/8
published as ApJS, 193, 8 (2011) · 27 Pages, 13 Figures, 4 Tables, eapj, published in ApJS
openalex publication_date 2011/02/17 · arxiv created 2011/02/19 · arxiv updated 2011/02/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present results from a spectroscopic program targeting 26 strong-lensing cluster cores that were visually identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Second Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (RCS-2). The 26 galaxy cluster lenses span a redshift range of 0.2 < z < 0.65, and our spectroscopy reveals 69 unique background sources with redshifts as high as z = 5.200. We also identify redshifts for 262 cluster member galaxies and measure the velocity dispersions and dynamical masses for 18 clusters where we have redshifts for N ⩾ 10 cluster member galaxies. We account for the expected biases in dynamical masses of strong-lensing-selected clusters as predicted by results from numerical simulations and discuss possible sources of bias in our observations. The median dynamical mass of the 18 clusters with N ⩾ 10 spectroscopic cluster members is M Vir = 7.84 × 10 14 M ☉ h −1 0.7 , which is somewhat higher than predictions for strong-lensing-selected clusters in simulations. The disagreement is not significant considering the large uncertainty in our dynamical data, systematic uncertainties in the velocity dispersion calibration, and limitations of the theoretical modeling. Nevertheless our study represents an important first step toward characterizing large samples of clusters that are identified in a systematic way as systems exhibiting dramatic strong-lensing features.