GaBoDS: The Garching-Bonn Deep Survey^*

II. Confirmation of EIS cluster candidates by weak gravitational lensing

¹ Institut für Astrophysik und Extraterrestrische Forschung (IAEF), Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany
² Department of Physics, Denys Wilkinson Bldg., University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford, UK
³ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany

Corresponding author: M. Schirmer, mischa@astro.uni-bonn.de

Received: 21 January 2004
Accepted: 8 March 2004

Abstract

We report the first confirmation of colour-selected galaxy cluster candidates by means of weak gravitational lensing. Significant lensing signals were identified in the course of the shear-selection programme of dark matter haloes in the Garching-Bonn Deep Survey, which currently covers 20 square degrees of deep, high-quality imaging data on the southern sky. The detection was made in a field that was previously covered by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) in 1997. A highly significant shear-selected mass-concentration perfectly coincides with the richest EIS cluster candidate at , thus confirming its cluster nature. Several other shear patterns in the field can also be identified with cluster candidates, one of which could possibly be part of a filament at .