Universe Colloquium: LoCuSS - Probing the Dark Sector with Galaxy Clusters at z=0.2

by Graham Smith ((Univ. of Birmingham))

Tuesday 19 Jul 2011, 16:30 → 18:00 Europe/Berlin

seminar room (basement) (Cluster building)

The Local Cluster Substructure Survey (LoCuSS) is a study of a volume-limited sample of 80 galaxy clusters at z=0.2 with the Subaru telescope, and a wide range of space- and ground-based facilities.  The main goal is to calibrate systematic uncertainties in future cluster-based dark energy (DE) experiments via a joint weak-lensing/X-ray/Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect study of cluster mass.  Graham will present an overview of the survey, and our early results on (i) the distribution of dark matter in clusters, (ii) the reliability of X-ray and lensing-based mass measurements, and (iii) the first joint weak-lensing/SZ constraints on the mass-observable scaling relations on which cluster-based DE experiments will rely.