English

Weak-Lensing Detection of Intercluster Filaments in Three Nearby Cluster Systems

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2025-10-31 v1

Abstract

Direct detection of intercluster filaments is challenging due to their low surface density, resulting in a weak deflection field. We present weak-lensing detections of intercluster filaments using wide-field Dark Energy Camera (DECam) observations from the Local Volume Complete Cluster Survey (LoVoCCS). A matched-filter method was applied to identify filamentary structures in three nearby (z<0.1z < 0.1) systems centered on Abell 401, Abell 2029, and Abell 3558. We discover two prominent filaments (4σ\geq 4\sigma) in each system, with the strongest detections (6.4σ7.3σ6.4\sigma - 7.3\sigma) around Abell 401 and Abell 2029. In particular, we report the first robust weak-lensing detections (>5σ)(>5 \sigma) of the intercluster bridges connecting the cluster pairs Abell 401/399, Abell 2029/2033, Abell 2029/SIG, and Abell 3558/3556. Adopting a filament convergence model motivated by numerical simulations, we infer the maximum convergence (κ0\kappa_0) and characteristic width (hch_{\mathrm{c}}) for all six filaments, yielding κ00.0150.053\kappa_0 \sim 0.015 - 0.053 and hc0.110.45 Mpch_{\mathrm{c}} \sim 0.11 - 0.45 \ \mathrm{Mpc}. The performance of the matched-filter technique is validated using mock shear catalogs and further tested on a null field around Abell 2351. We also explore the potential of using the B-mode lensing signal of filaments to suppress cluster-induced shear contamination. These results demonstrate the feasibility of directly mapping dark matter filaments with current and future wide-field weak-lensing datasets.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.26318,
  title  = {Weak-Lensing Detection of Intercluster Filaments in Three Nearby Cluster Systems},
  author = {Rahul Shinde and Ian Dell'Antonio},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.26318},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Submitted to ApJ