2011

Quantifying the rareness of extreme galaxy clusters

Hotchkiss, Shaun

Understand

I show that the most common method of quantifying the likelihood that an extreme galaxy cluster could exist is biased and can result in false claims of tension with LambdaCDM.

  • This common method uses the probability that at least one cluster could exist above the mass and redshift of an observed cluster.
  • I demonstrate the existence of the bias using sample cluster populations, describe its origin and explain how to remove it.
  • I then suggest potentially more suitable and unbiased measures of the rareness of individual clusters.

Reading the bibliography…