Girish Mahajan (Editor)

MAssive Cluster Survey

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Survey type
  
astronomical survey

Website
  
www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~ebeling/clusters/MACS.html

The MAssive Cluster Survey (MACS) compiled and characterized a sample of very X-ray luminous (and thus, by inference, massive), distant clusters of galaxies. The sample comprises 124 spectroscopically confirmed clusters at 0.3 < z < 0.7. Candidates were selected from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey data.

Contents

History

One of the galaxy clusters, MACS J0647+7015 was found to have gravitationally lensed the most distant galaxy (MACS0647-JD) then ever imaged, in 2012, by CLASH. The first statistical study of X-ray cavities in distant clusters of galaxies was performed by analyzing the Chandra X-ray observations of MACS. Out of 76 clusters representing a sample of the most luminous X-ray clusters, observers found 13 cut and clear cavities and 7 possible cavities. A new radio halo, as well as a relic applicant, were found in MACS, with the help of the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope and the Karoo Array Telescope-7. The discovered radio halo has a largest linear scale of about 0.9Mpc. X-ray chosen clusters are almost free of projection effects because they are composed of intrinsically massive, gravitationally collapsed systems.

MACS team

The MACS team consists of:

  • Harald Ebeling, University of Hawaii, USA
  • Alastair Edge, University of Durham, UK
  • J. Patrick Henry, University of Hawaii, USA
  • Survey notation

    Objects are labelled as JHHMM.m+DDMM where HHMM+DDMM are the coordinates in the J2000 system. Here H, D, and M refer to hours, degrees, and minutes, respectively, and m refers to tenths of minutes of time.

  • HH Hours of right ascension
  • MM.m Minutes of right ascension or declination
  • DD.d Degrees in declination
  • References

    MAssive Cluster Survey Wikipedia