Wide field weak lensing observations of A1835 and A2204

¹ Institut für Astrophysik und Extraterrestrische Forschung der Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany
² Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany

Corresponding author: D. Clowe, clowe@astro.uni-bonn.de

Received: 19 April 2002
Accepted: 5 August 2002

Abstract

We present mass reconstructions from weak lensing for the galaxy clusters A1835 and A2204 over fields using data from the ESO/MPG Wide Field Imager. Using a background galaxy population of we detect the gravitational shear of A1835 at significance, and obtain best-fit mass profiles of  km s^-1 for a singular isothermal sphere model and  h^-1 kpc, for a “universal” CDM profile. Using a color-selected background galaxy population of we detect the gravitational shear of A2204 at significance, and obtain best-fit mass profiles of  km s^-1 for a SIS model and  km s^-1, for a “universal” CDM profile. The gravitational shear at distances greater than is significantly detected for both clusters. The best fit weak lensing cluster masses agree well with both X-ray and dynamical mass measurements, although the central concentration of A1835 is much lower in the weak lensing mass profile than that measured by recent Chandra results. We suggest that this lower concentration is most likely a combination of contamination of the “background” galaxy population with cluster dwarf galaxies and the effect of a prolate or tri-axial cluster core with the major axis lying near the plane of the sky. We also detect a number of additional structures at moderate significance, some of which appear to be sub-haloes associated with the clusters.