Fossil Systems in the 400d Cluster Catalog

We report the discovery of seven new fossil systems in the 400d cluster survey. Our search targets nearby, $z\le0.2$, and X-ray bright, $L_X\ge 10^{43}$ erg sec$^{-1}$, clusters of galaxies. Where available, we measure the optical luminosities from Sloan Digital Sky Survey images, thereby obtaining uniform sets of both X-ray and optical data. Our selection criteria identify 12 fossil systems, out of which five are known from previous studies. While in general agreement with earlier results, our larger sample size allows us to put tighter constraints on the number density of fossil clusters. It has been previously reported that fossil groups are more X-ray bright than other X-ray groups of galaxies for the same optical luminosity. We find, however, that the X-ray brightness of massive fossil systems is consistent with that of the general population of galaxy clusters and follows the same $L_X-L_{\rm opt}$ scaling relation.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Ap

Cosmological constraints on matter density perturbations amplitude, neutrino mass and number of relativistic species

It is shown that Planck CMB temperature anisotropy data at high multipoles, ℓ > 1000, produce the measurement of matter density perturbations amplitude that contradict to all other constraints obtained both from remaining Planck CMB anisotropy data and from other cosmological data, at about 3:7σ significance level. With the exception of Planck CMB temperature anisotropy data at high multipoles, all other measurements of density perturbation amplitude are in good agreement between each other and give the following measurements of linear density perturbation amplitude: σ8 = 0:792 ± 0:006, mean density of the Universe: Ωm = 0:287 ± 0:007, and Hubble constant: H0 = 69:4 ± 0:6 km s-1 Mpc-1. Therefore, in this case the tensions in H0 constraints between Planck+BAO data and direct H0 measurements are weaken, and the tensions in σ8 measurements between Planck CMB data and large scale structure data disappear completely. Taking in account the data on baryon acoustic oscillations and (or) direct measurements of the Hubble constant, one can obtain different constraints on sum of neutrino mass and number of relativistic species

Catalog of 3 < z < 5.5 Quasar Candidates Selected among XMM-Newton Sources and Its Spectroscopic Verification

We have compiled a catalog of 903 quasar candidates (including known quasars) at 3 &lt; z &lt; 5.5 selected among X-ray sources from the XMM-Newton serendipitous survey (3XMM-DR4 catalog). We used photometric SDSS, 2MASS, and WISE data to select the objects. The surface number density of objects in our sample exceeds that in the SDSS spectroscopic quasar sample at the same redshifts by a factor of 1.5. We have performed spectroscopic observations of a subsample of new quasar candidates using a new low- and medium-resolution spectrograph at the 1.6-m AZT-33IK telescope (Mondy, Russia) and demonstrated that the purity of these candidates is about 65%. We have discovered one of the most distant (z = 5.08) X-ray selected quasars