Related papers: Clusters of Galaxies: Diagnostic Tools for Cosmolo…
I critically review a methodology of using clusters of galaxies as cosmological probes. The understanding of the abundances and spatial correlations of dark matter halos has been significantly advanced especially for a last few years.…
The detection of clusters of galaxies in large surveys plays an important part in extragalactic astronomy, and particularly in cosmology, since cluster counts can give strong constraints on cosmological parameters. X-ray imaging is in…
We outline main arguments in favor of cosmological X-ray surveys of galaxy clusters. We summarize recent advances in our understanding of cluster physics. After a short review of past surveys, we present the scientific motivations of the…
Clusters of galaxies are large gravitationally bound systems which consist of several observable components: hundreds of galaxies, hot gas between the galaxies and sometimes relativistic particles. These components are emitting in different…
Clusters of galaxies contain a hot gas, which emits in X-rays. X-ray telescopes such as XMM-Newton allow to study this plasma to obtain information on physical quantities of these objects. We present here some results on the total mass…
X-ray observations of galaxy clusters potentially provide powerful cosmological probes if systematics due to our incomplete knowledge of the intracluster medium (ICM) physics are understood and controlled. In this paper, we present mock…
The analysis of the spatial distribution and kinematics of galaxies in clusters allows one to determine the cluster internal dynamics. In this paper, I review the state of the art of this topic. In particular, I summarize what we have…
Sensitive, wide-area X-ray surveys which would be possible with the WFXT will detect huge samples of virialized objects spanning the mass range from sub-groups to the most massive clusters, and extending in redshift to beyond z=2. These…
In recent years, significant progress has been made in building new galaxy clusters samples, at low and high redshifts, from wide-area surveys, particularly exploiting the Sunyaev--Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. A large effort is underway to…
Clusters of galaxies are massive enough to be considered representative samples of the Universe, and to retain all of the heavy elements synthesized in their constituent stars. Since most of these metals reside in hot plasma, X-ray…
Clusters of galaxies outline the network of the distribution of visible matter in the Universe, marking the highest-mass knots where filamentary structures join together. If we observe the sky in X rays, clusters of galaxies stand out as…
The search for gamma radiation in clusters of galaxies represents a precious tool to investigate the history of these large scale structures. Clusters or sources within them accelerate cosmic rays, as demonstrated by the detection of radio…
We review the methods adopted to reconstruct the mass profiles in X-ray luminous galaxy clusters. We discuss the limitations and the biases affecting these measurements and how these mass profiles can be used as cosmological proxies.
X-ray cluster measurements interpreted with a universal baryon/gas mass fraction can theoretically serve as a cosmological distance probe. We examine issues of cosmological sensitivity for current (e.g. Chandra X-ray Observatory,…
Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in Universe. They are very important as both cosmological probes and astrophysical laboratories. Several methods have been developed to detect galaxy clusters with different techniques (optical,…
Clusters of galaxies, being dark matter dominated, have long been and still are the ideal cosmological targets to study the nature of dark matter. Constraints on the nature of dark matter comes in particular from the observational…
Clusters of galaxies can be seen as giant astrophysical laboratories enclosing matter in a large enough volume, so that the matter composition can be taken as representing the composition of our Universe. X-ray observations allow a very…
In this work we show how galaxy clusters can be used to discriminate among different cosmological models. We have used available X-ray & optical cluster data to constrain the cosmological parameters as well as the cluster scaling relations,…
The selection of clusters of galaxies through their X-ray emission has proved to be an extremely powerful technique over the past four decades. The growth of X-ray astronomy has provided the community with a steadily more detailed view of…
In the last eight years, the Chandra and XMM-Newton satellites changed significantly our view of X-ray clusters of galaxies. In particular, several complex phenomena have been directly observed: interactions between cluster galaxies and the…