The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR6 Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Selected Galaxy Clusters Catalog
Abstract
We present the results of a search for galaxy clusters in the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 6 (DR6) microwave sky maps covering 16293 square degrees in three frequency bands, using data obtained over the lifetime of the project (2008-2022). We report redshifts and mass estimates for 10040 clusters detected via their Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect with signal-to-noise greater than 4 at a 2.4 arcminute filter scale. The catalog includes 1180 clusters at redshifts greater than 1, and 124 clusters at redshifts greater than 1.5. Using a relation between cluster SZ signal and mass that is consistent with recent weak-lensing measurements, we estimate that clusters detected with signal-to-noise greater than 5 form a sample which is 90% complete for clusters with masses greater than MSun (measured within a spherical volume with mean density 500 times the critical density). El Gordo, a cluster found in an initial ACT survey of 755 square degrees, remains the most extreme cluster in mass and redshift; we find no cluster with a mass and redshift combination high enough to falsify the standard LCDM cosmology with Gaussian initial perturbations. We make public a variety of data products, including the full cluster candidate list, noise maps, and sky masks, along with our software for cluster detection and instructions for reproducing our cluster catalogs from the public ACT maps.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2507.21459,
title = {The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR6 Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Selected Galaxy Clusters Catalog},
author = {HSC Collaboration and M. Aguena and S. Aiola and S. Allam and F. Andrade-Oliveira and D. Bacon and N. Bahcall and N. Battaglia and E. S. Battistelli and S. Bocquet and B. Bolliet and J. R. Bond and D. Brooks and E. Calabrese and J. Carretero and S. K. Choi and L. N. da Costa and M. Costanzi and W. Coulton and T. M. Davis and S. Desai and M. J. Devlin and S. Dicker and P. Doel and A. J. Duivenvoorden and J. Dunkley and S. Ferraro and B. Flaugher and J. Frieman and P. A. Gallardo and M. Gatti and E. Gaztanaga and A. S. Gill and J. E. Golec and D. Gruen and R. A. Gruendl and M. Halpern and M. Hasselfield and J. C. Hill and M. Hilton and A. D. Hincks and S. R. Hinton and D. L. Hollowood and K. Honscheid and J. Hubmayr and K. M. Huffenberger and J. P. Hughes and D. J. James and M. Klein and K. Knowles and B. J. Koopman and A. Kosowsky and O. Lahav and E. Lee and Y. Lin and M. Lokken and M. S. Madhavacheril and A. A. Plazas Malagón and J. v. Marrewijk and J. L. Marshall and J. McMahon and J. Mena-Fernández and R. Miquel and H. Miyatake and J. J. Mohr and K. Moodley and T. Mroczkowski and S. Naess and F. Nati and A. Nicola and M. D. Niemack and R. L. C. Ogando and M. Oguri and J. Orlowski-Scherer and L. A. Page and B. Partridge and M. E. da Silva Pereira and A. Porredon and F. J. Qu and D. C. Ragavan and B. Ried Guachalla and A. K. Romer and A. Carnero Rosell and E. S. Rykoff and S. Samuroff and E. Sanchez and I. Sevilla-Noarbe and C. Sierra and C. Sifón and M. Smith and S. T. Staggs and E. Suchyta and M. E. C. Swanson and D. L. Tucker and C. Vargas and E. M. Vavagiakis and J. De Vicente and N. Weaverdyck and J. Weller and E. J. Wollack and I. Zubeldia},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.21459},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
25 pages, 21 figures. Published in the Open Journal of Astrophysics. All v1.0 data products now available on LAMBDA at https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/act/actadv_dr6_szcluster_catalog_get.html ; for details of differences compared to the previous v0.11/arXiv v2 release, see the Change Log on LAMBDA at https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/act/actadv_dr6_szcluster_catalog_info.html