SPIDERS: the spectroscopic follow-up of X-ray-selected clusters of galaxies in SDSS-IV

2016/08/31 by Nicolas Clerc, Andrea Merloni, A. Merloni +32
Physics and Astronomy · #Active galactic nucleus #Astronomy #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Cluster (spacecraft) #Cosmology #Extragalactic astronomy #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy cluster #Galaxy groups and clusters #LAMOST #Luminosity #Physics #ROSAT #Redshift #Sky #astro-ph.CO

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2214

27 pages, 31 figures, 9 tables. Tables in electronic format are available from http://www.sdss.org. Submitted to MNRAS

arxiv created 2016/08/31 · openalex publication_date 2016/09/05 · arxiv updated 2016/09/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

SPIDERS (The SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources) is a program dedicated to the homogeneous and complete spectroscopic follow-up of X-ray AGN and galaxy clusters over a large area (₇500 deg2) of the extragalactic sky. SPIDERS is part of the SDSS-IV project, together with the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) and the Time-Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS). This paper describes the largest project within SPIDERS before the launch of eROSITA: an optical spectroscopic survey of X-ray selected, massive (_ 1014 to 1015 M_) galaxy clusters discovered in ROSAT and XMM-Newton imaging. The immediate aim is to determine precise (_z _ 0:001) redshifts for 4,0005,000 of these systems out to z _ 0:6. The scientific goal of the program is precision cosmology, using clusters as probes of large-scale structure in the expanding Universe. We present the cluster samples, target selection algorithms and observation strategies. We demonstrate the efficiency of selecting targets using a combination of SDSS imaging data, a robust red-sequence finder and a dedicated prioritization scheme. We describe a set of algorithms and work-flow developed to collate spectra and assign cluster membership, and to deliver catalogues of spectroscopically confirmed clusters. We discuss the relevance of line-of-sight velocity dispersion estimators for the richer systems. We illustrate our techniques by constructing a catalogue of 230 spectroscopically validated clusters (0:031 < z < 0:658), found in pilot observations. We discuss two potential science applications of the SPIDERS sample: the study of the X-ray luminosity-velocity dispersion (LX

Citations

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