The miniJPAS survey

Cluster and galaxy group detections with AMICO^⋆

¹ Zentrum für Astronomie, Universitatät Heidelberg, Philosophenweg 12, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
e-mail: maturi@uni-heidelberg.de
² Institute for Theoretical Physics, Philosophenweg 16, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
³ Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, PO Box 64, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
⁴ Observatório do Valongo, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Ladeira do Pedro Antônio 43, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 20080-090, Brazil
⁵ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, 18008 Granada, Spain
⁶ Observatório Nacional, Rua General José Cristino, 77, São Cristóvão, 20921-400 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
⁷ Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 311 West Hall, 1085 South University Ave., Ann Arbor, USA
⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Box 870324, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
⁹ Departamento de Astronomia, Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas da USP, Cidade Universitária, 05508-900 São Paulo, SP, Brazil
¹⁰ Gemini Observatory, NSF’s NOIRLab, Casilla 603, La Serena 1700000, Chile
¹¹ Instituto de Física de Cantabria (CSIC-UC), Avda. Los Castros s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain
¹² Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Física, Caixa Postal 04455, Brasília, DF 70919-970, Brazil
¹³ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “Augusto Righi” – Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Via Piero Gobetti 93/2, 40129 Bologna, Italy
¹⁴ INAF-Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna, Via Piero Gobetti 93/3, 40129 Bologna, Italy
¹⁵ INFN-Sezione di Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat 6/2, 40127 Bologna, Italy
¹⁶ Núcleo de Astrofísica e Cosmologia & Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, 29075-910 Vitória, ES, Brazil
¹⁷ INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via Tiepolo 11, 34131 Trieste, Italy
¹⁸ IFPU – Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Via Beirut 2, 34151 Trieste, Italy
¹⁹ Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA), Unidad Asociada al CSIC, Plaza San Juan, 1, 44001 Teruel, Spain
²⁰ Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), Manuel Lardizabal Ibilbidea, 4, San Sebastián, Spain
²¹ Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, 48013 Bilbao, Spain
²² Physics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, PO Box 653, Be’er-Sheva 84105, Israel
²³ Departamento de Física Matemática, Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matão, 1371, CEP, 05508-090 São Paulo, Brazil
²⁴ Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal da Bahia, 40210-340 Salvador, BA, Brazil
²⁵ Instruments4, 4121 Pembury Place, La Canada Flintridge, CA 91011, USA

Received: 25 October 2022
Accepted: 18 July 2023

Abstract

Context. Samples of galaxy clusters allow us to better understand the physics at play in galaxy formation and to constrain cosmological models once the mass, position (for clustering studies), and redshift are known. In this context, large optical datasets play a crucial role.

Aims. We investigate the capabilities of the Javalambre-Physics of the Accelerating Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS) in detecting and characterizing galaxy groups and clusters. We analysed the data of the miniJPAS survey, obtained with the JPAS-Pathfinder camera and covering 1 deg² centred on the AEGIS field to the same depths and with the same 54 narrow-band filters plus two broader-band near-UV and near-IR filters anticipated for the full J-PAS survey.

Methods. We used the Adaptive Matched Identifier of Clustered Objects (AMICO) algorithm to detect and characterize groups and clusters of galaxies down to S/N = 2.5 in the redshift range 0.05 < z < 0.8.

Results. We detected 80, 30, and 11 systems with signal-to-noise ratios higher than 2.5, 3.0, and 3.5, respectively, down to ∼10¹³ M_⊙ h⁻¹. We derive mass-proxy scaling relations based on Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray data for the signal amplitude returned by AMICO, the intrinsic richness, and a new proxy that incorporates the galaxies’ stellar masses. This proxy is made possible thanks to the J-PAS filters and shows a smaller scatter with respect to the richness. We fully characterize the sample and use AMICO to derive a probabilistic membership association of galaxies with the detected groups that we test against spectroscopy. We further show how the narrow-band filters of J-PAS provide a gain of up to 100% in signal-to-noise ratio in detection and an uncertainty on the redshift of clusters of only σ_z = 0.0037(1 + z), placing J-PAS between broad-band photometric and spectroscopic surveys.

Conclusions. The performance of AMICO and J-PAS with respect to mass sensitivity, mass-proxies quality, and redshift accuracy will allow us to derive cosmological constraints not only based on cluster counts, but also based on clustering of galaxy clusters.