PAMS Seminar: "Stellar Mass Properties of Infrared-selected High-redshift Galaxy Clusters from MaDCoWS" by Bandon Decker

Note: This is a lunch seminar.

Bandon Decker
Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of Missouri-Kansas City

Abstract:
Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally-bound objects in the universe. Studying how these extreme structures grow and evolve over cosmic time is therefore of great importance. Although clusters are relatively well-studied in the local universe, studies of galaxy clusters at high-redshifts are more sparse owing to the difficulty in identifying large numbers of clusters and in getting suitable follow-up data on them. This period above z = 1 is a crucial period in cluster evolution as they stop forming stars and transition into the settled behemoths they are today. The Massive and Distant Clusters of WISE Survey (MaDCoWS) uses infrared WISE data to find the most significant galaxy overdensities at z ~ 1. Follow-up Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) observations have provided ICM confirmation of more than twenty MaDCoWS clusters—including MOO J1142+1527, the most massive cluster detected by any method above z = 1.15—while follow-up Spitzer/IRAC observations have allowed us to reliably measure their stellar mass. I will be showing comparisons of the stellar mass fractions of these high-redshift, infrared-selected MaDCoWS clusters to SZ-selected clusters from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) survey at similar redshift and to previous studies at low-redshift. I will also discuss recent work studying the evolution of the cluster luminosity function (LF) as a function of redshift, and what this tells us about cluster and galaxy evolution in these extreme environments.

This seminar will be held exclusively on Zoom (955 5209 1021). Please visit the Physics Seminars page for a link.

Free