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Issue A&A Volume 410, Number 2, November I 2003 Page(s) 425 - 443 Section Extragalactic astronomy DOI 10.1051/0004-6361:20031105

A&A 410, 425-443 (2003)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20031105

Clusters and superclusters in the Las Campanas redshift survey

J. Einasto¹, M. Einasto¹, G. Hütsi¹, E. Saar¹, D. L. Tucker², E. Tago¹, V. Müller³, P. Heinämäki^{1, 4} and S. S. Allam<sup>2, 5

1</sup>  Tartu Observatory, 61602 Tõravere, Estonia
²  Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, MS 127, PO Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
³  Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
⁴  Tuorla Observatory, Väisäläntie 20, Piikkiö, Finland
⁵  Dept. of Astronomy, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001, USA

(Received 6 May 2003 / Accepted 17 July 2003)

Abstract
We use a 2-dimensional high-resolution density field of galaxies of the Las Campanas Redshift Survey (LCRS) with a smoothing length 0.8  h^-1 Mpc to extract clusters and groups of galaxies, and a low-resolution field with a smoothing length 10  h^-1 Mpc to find superclusters of galaxies. We study the properties of these density field (DF) clusters and superclusters, and compare the properties of the DF-clusters and superclusters with those of Abell clusters and superclusters and LCRS groups. We show that among the cluster samples studied the DF-cluster sample best describes the large-scale distribution of matter and the fine structure of superclusters. We calculate the DF-cluster luminosity function and find that clusters in high-density environments are about ten times more luminous than those in low-density environments. We show that the DF-superclusters that contain Abell clusters are richer and more luminous than the DF-superclusters without Abell clusters. The distribution of DF-clusters and superclusters shows the hierarchy of systems in the universe.

Key words: cosmology: observations -- cosmology: large-scale structure of the Universe -- galaxies: clusters: general

Offprint request: J. Einasto, einasto@aai.ee

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