The ROSAT-ESO Flux Limited X-ray (REFLEX) Galaxy cluster survey^*,**,***

V. The cluster catalogue

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, 85748 Garching, Germany e-mail: hxb@mpe.mpg.de
² INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, via Bianchi 46, 23807 Merate, Italy
³ Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool CH41 1LD, UK
⁴ E. O. Hulburt Center for Space Research, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375., USA
⁵ Observatorio Astronómico, Universidad de Valencia, 22085 Valencia, Spain
⁶ Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita degli Studi di Milano, Italy
⁷ Physics Department, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
⁸ Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ, UK
⁹ CEA Saclay, Service d`Astrophysique, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
¹⁰ Institute for Astrophysics, Universität Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
¹¹ European Southern Observatory, 85748 Garching, Germany

Received: 9 October 2003
Accepted: 11 March 2004

Abstract

We present the catalogue of the REFLEX Cluster Survey providing information on the X-ray properties, redshifts, and some identification details of the clusters in the REFLEX sample. The catalogue describes a statistically complete X-ray flux-limited sample of 447 galaxy clusters above an X-ray flux of 3  10^-12 erg s^-1 cm^-2 (0.1 to 2.4 keV) in an area of 4.24 ster in the southern sky. The cluster candidates were first selected by their X-ray emission in the ROSAT-All Sky Survey and subsequently spectroscopically identified in the frame of an ESO key programme. Previously described tests have shown that the sample is more than 90% complete and there is a conservative upper limit of 9% on the fraction of clusters with a dominant X-ray contamination from AGN. In addition to the cluster catalogue we also describe the complete selection criteria as a function of the sky position and the conversion functions used to analyse the X-ray data. These are essential for the precise statistical analysis of the large-scale cluster distribution. This data set is at present the largest, statistically complete X-ray galaxy cluster sample. Together with these data set we also provide for the first time the full three-dimensional selection function. The sample forms the basis of several cosmological studies, one of the most important applications being the assessment of the statistics of the large-scale structure of the universe and the test of cosmological models. Part of these cosmological results have already been published.