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Published December 2018 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

Spitzer Planck Herschel Infrared Cluster (SPHerIC) survey: Candidate galaxy clusters at 1.3 < z < 3 selected by high star-formation rate

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale
  • 2. ROR icon University of Concepción
  • 3. ROR icon Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
  • 4. ROR icon Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
  • 5. ROR icon Sorbonne University
  • 6. ROR icon University of Arizona
  • 7. ROR icon European Space Astronomy Centre
  • 8. ROR icon Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
  • 9. ROR icon Institut de Recherche sur les Lois Fondamentales de l'Univers
  • 10. ROR icon Astrophysique, Instrumentation et Modélisation
  • 11. ROR icon Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology
  • 12. ROR icon Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón
  • 13. ROR icon Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica di Milano
  • 14. ROR icon University of British Columbia
  • 15. ROR icon University of Oxford

Abstract

There is a lack of large samples of spectroscopically confirmed clusters and protoclusters at high redshifts, z > 1.5. Discovering and characterizing distant (proto-)clusters is important for yielding insights into the formation of large-scale structure and on the physical processes responsible for regulating star-formation in galaxies in dense environments. The Spitzer Planck Herschel Infrared Cluster (SPHerIC) survey was initiated to identify these characteristically faint and dust-reddened sources during the epoch of their early assembly. We present Spitzer/IRAC observations of 82 galaxy (proto-)cluster candidates at 1.3 < z_p < 3.0 that were vetted in a two step process: (1) using Planck to select by color those sources with the highest star-formation rates, and (2) using Herschel at higher resolution to separate out the individual red sources. The addition of the Spitzer data enables efficient detection of the central and massive brightest red cluster galaxies (BRCGs). We find that BRCGs are associated with highly significant, extended and crowded regions of IRAC sources which are more overdense than the field. This result corroborates our hypothesis that BRCGs within the Planck–Herschel sources trace some of the densest and actively star-forming proto-clusters in the early Universe. On the basis of a richness-mass proxy relation, we obtain an estimate of their mean masses which suggests our sample consists of some of the most massive clusters at z ≈ 2 and are the likely progenitors of the most massive clusters observed today.

Additional Information

© ESO 2018. Received: 9 April 2018. Accepted: 28 June 2018. We thank Ranga Chary for his help, advice, and insights during the course of this study. This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. The Herschel spacecraft was designed, built, tested, and launched under a contract to ESA managed by the Herschel/Planck Project team by an industrial consortium under the overall responsibility of the prime contractor Thales Alenia Space (Cannes), and including Astrium (Friedrichshafen) responsible for the payload module and for system testing at spacecraft level, Thales Alenia Space (Turin) responsible for the service module, and Astrium (Toulouse) responsible for the telescope, with in excess of a hundred subcontractors. The development of Planck has been supported by: ESA; CNES and CNRS/INSU-IN2P3-INP (France); ASI, CNR, and INAF (Italy); NASA and DoE (USA); STFC and UKSA (UK); CSIC, MICINN, JA, and RES (Spain); Tekes, AoF, and CSC (Finland); DLR and MPG (Germany); CSA (Canada); DTU Space (Denmark); SER/SSO (Switzerland); RCN (Norway); SFI (Ireland); FCT/MCTES (Portugal); and PRACE (EU). A description of the Planck Collaboration and a list of its members, including the technical or scientific activities in which they have been involved, can be found at https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/planck/planck-collaboration. We acknowledge the support the PNCG (Programme National de Cosmologie et Galaxies). CM acknowledges the support provided by FONDECYT postdoctoral research grant no. 3170774.

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
92090
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20190104-094928226

Related works

Describes
https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.07330 (URL)

Funding

NASA/JPL/Caltech
Programme National Galaxies et Cosmologie (PNCG)
Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT)
3170774

Dates

Created
2019-01-05
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-16
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

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Caltech groups
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)