GaBoDS: The Garching-Bonn Deep Survey -- IX. A sample of 158 shear-selected mass concentration candidates

The aim of the present work is the construction of a mass-selected galaxy cluster sample based on weak gravitational lensing methods. This sample will be subject to spectroscopic follow-up observations. We apply the mass aperture statistics and a derivative of it to 19 square degrees of high quality, single colour wide field imaging data obtained with the WFI@MPG/ESO 2.2m telescope. For the statistics a family of filter functions is used that approximates the expected tangential radial shear profile and thus allows for the efficient detection of mass concentrations. We identify 158 possible mass concentrations. This is the first time that such a large and blindly selected sample is published. 72 of the detections are associated with concentrations of bright galaxies. For about 22 of those we found spectra in the literature, indicating or proving that the galaxies seen are indeed spatially concentrated. 15 of those were previously known to be clusters or have meanwhile been secured as such. We currently follow-up a larger number of them spectroscopically to obtain deeper insight into their physical properties. The remaining 55% of the possible mass concentrations found are not associated with any optical light, or could not be classified unambiguously. We show that those "dark" detections are to a significant degree due to noise, and appear preferentially in shallow data.Comment: 25 pages, 18 figures, submitted to A&A; for a better print version, see http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~mischa/astroph_0607022.pd

The 400d Galaxy Cluster Survey weak lensing programme: II: Weak lensing study of seven clusters with MMT/Megacam

Evolution in the mass function of galaxy clusters sensitively traces both the expansion history of the Universe and cosmological structure formation. Robust cluster mass determinations are a key ingredient for a reliable measurement of this evolution, especially at high redshift. Weak gravitational lensing is a promising tool for, on average, unbiased mass estimates. This weak lensing project aims at measuring reliable weak lensing masses for a complete X-ray selected sample of 36 high redshift (0.35<z<0.9) clusters. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the robustness of the methodology against commonly encountered problems, including pure instrumental effects, the presence of bright (8--9 mag) stars close to the cluster centre, ground based measurements of high-z (z~0.8) clusters, and the presence of massive unrelated structures along the line-sight. We select a subsample of seven clusters observed with MMT/Megacam. Instrumental effects are checked in detail by cross-comparison with an archival CFHT/MegaCam observation. We derive mass estimates for seven clusters by modelling the tangential shear with an NFW profile, in two cases with multiple components to account for projected structures in the line-of-sight. We firmly detect lensing signals from all seven clusters at more than $3.5\sigma$ and determine their masses, ranging from $10^{14} M_{\odot}$ to $10^{15} M_{\odot}$, despite the presence of nearby bright stars. We retrieve the lensing signal of more than one cluster in the CL 1701+6414 field, while apparently observing CL 1701+6414 through a massive foreground filament. We also find a multi-peaked shear signal in CL 1641+4001. Shear structures measured in the MMT and CFHT images of CL 1701+6414 are highly correlated.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics; A&A 546, A7

How accurately can we measure weak gravitational shear?

With the recent detection of cosmic shear, the most challenging effect of weak gravitational lensing has been observed. The main difficulties for this detection were the need for a large amount of high quality data and the control of systematics during the gravitational shear measurement process, in particular those coming from the Point Spread Function anisotropy. In this paper we perform detailed simulations with the state-of-the-art algorithm developed by Kaiser, Squires and Broadhurst (KSB) to measure gravitational shear. We show that for realistic PSF profiles the KSB algorithm can recover any shear amplitude in the range 0.012 < |\gammavec |<0.32 with a relative, systematic error of $10-15$. We give quantitative limits on the PSF correction method as a function of shear strength, object size, signal-to-noise and PSF anisotropy amplitude, and we provide an automatic procedure to get a reliable object catalog for shear measurements out of the raw images.Comment: 23 pages LaTeX, 17 Figures, inclusion of referee comments, published by A&A Main Journal (366, 717-735