1201.5736 (S. Desai et al.)

Optical followup of galaxy clusters detected by the South Pole Telescope    [PDF]

S. Desai, R. Armstrong, M. L. N. Ashby, B. Bayliss, G. Bazin, B. Benson, E. Bertin, L. Bleem, M. Brodwin, A. Clochiatti, R. Foley, M. Gladders, A. H. Gonzalez, F. W. High, J. Liu, J. Mohr, A. Rest, J. Ruel, A. Saro, J. Song, B. Stalder, A. Stanford, C. Stubbs, A. Zenteno

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is a 10 meter telescope operating at mm wavelengths. It has recently completed a three-band survey covering 2500 sq. degrees. One of the survey's main goals is to detect galaxy clusters using Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect and use these clusters for a variety of cosmological and astrophysical studies such as the dark energy equation of state, the primordial non-gaussianity and the evolution of galaxy populations. Since 2005, we have been engaged in a comprehensive optical and near-infrared followup program (at wavelengths between 0.4 and 5 {\mu}m) to image high-significance SPT clusters, to measure their photometric redshifts, and to estimate the contamination rate of the candidate lists. These clusters are then used for various cosmological and astrophysical studies.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.5736