Improved optical mass tracer for galaxy clusters calibrated using weak lensing measurements

Understand

We develop an improved mass tracer for clusters of galaxies from optically observed parameters, and calibrate the mass relation using weak gravitational lensing measurements.

• We employ a sample of ~ 13,000 optically-selected clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) maxBCG catalog, with photometric redshifts in the range 0.1-0.3.
• The optical tracers we consider are cluster richness, cluster luminosity, luminosity of the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG), and combinations of these parameters.
• We measure the weak lensing signal around stacked clusters as a function of the various tracers, and use it to determine the tracer with the least amount of scatter.