相关论文: I. Analysis of candidates for interacting galaxy c…
Merging galaxy clusters present a unique opportunity to study the properties of dark matter in an astrophysical context. These are rare and extreme cosmic events in which the bulk of the baryonic matter becomes displaced from the dark…
Galaxy cluster mergers are representative of a wide range of physics, making them an excellent probe of the properties of dark matter and the ionized plasma of the intracluster medium. To date, most studies have focused on mergers occurring…
In the theoretical framework of hierarchical structure formation, galaxy clusters evolve through continuous accretion and mergers of substructures. Cosmological simulations have revealed the best picture of the Universe as a 3-D filamentary…
Galaxy cluster mergers that exhibit clear dissociation between their dark matter, intracluster gas, and stellar components are great laboratories for probing dark matter properties. Mergers that are binary and in the plane of the sky have…
I will present a review of some of the many recent developments within the exciting and rapidly evolving field of Interacting and Merging Galaxies. I will touch both on observations and on theory, focussing on those aspects where galaxy…
Galaxy cluster mergers are a powerful laboratory for testing cosmological and astrophysical models. However, interpreting individual merging clusters depends crucially on their merger configuration, defined by the masses, velocities, impact…
Merging clusters of galaxies are unique in their power to directly probe and place limits on the self-interaction cross-section of dark matter. Detailed observations of several merging clusters have shown the intracluster gas to be…
Parametric strong lensing studies of galaxy clusters often display misleading features: group/cluster scale dark matter components without any stellar counterpart, offsets between both components larger than what might be allowed by neither…
(abridged) We utilize existing imaging and spectroscopic data for the galaxy clusters MS2137-23 and Abell 383 to present improved measures of the distribution of dark and baryonic material in the clusters' central regions. Our method, based…
We present DLSCL J0916.2+2951 (z=0.53), a newly discovered major cluster merger in which the collisional cluster gas has become dissociated from the collisionless galaxies and dark matter. We identified the cluster using optical and weak…
Several simple mergers between model galaxy clusters containing a mixture of gas and dark matter are examined, testing the coupling of the gas to the underlying collisionless material. The gas is shocked, irreversibly dissipating the energy…
Although weak lensing (WL) is a powerful method to estimate a galaxy cluster mass without any dynamical assumptions, a model bias can arise when the cluster density profile departs from the assumed model profile. In a merging system, the…
We present results from the XMM-Newton observations of our ongoing program on merging clusters. To date three clusters have been observed, covering the temporal sequence from early to late stage mergers: A1750, A2065 and A3921. Using…
Galaxy groups and clusters are the main tools used to test cosmological models and to study the environmental effect of galaxy formation. This work provides a catalogue of galaxy groups and clusters, as well as potentially merging systems…
The cluster Abell 2163 is a merging system of several subclusters with complex dynamics. It presents exceptional X-rays properties (high temperature and luminosity), suggesting that it is a very massive cluster. Recent 2D analysis of the…
Merging galaxy systems provides observational evidence of the existence of dark matter and constraints on its properties. Therefore, statistical uniform samples of merging systems would be a powerful tool for several studies. In this work…
The different regimes of gravitational lensing constitutes an interesting tool in order to map the mass distribution in galaxy clusters on different scales. In this proceedings article, I review some work I have performed on this topic.…
We measure the dark matter density profiles of six galaxy clusters: A383, MS 2137-23, MACS J0326.8-0043, MACS J1427.6-2521, MACS J0417.5-1154, and MACS J0949.8+1708. Each cluster contains at least one radial arc, a unique physical feature…
An XMM-Newton imaging spectroscopy analysis of the galaxy cluster A1644 is presented. A1644 is a complex merging system consisting of a main and a sub cluster. A trail of cool, metal-rich gas has been discovered close to the sub cluster.…
Galaxy mergers play a critical role in galaxy evolution - altering the size, morphology, dynamics and composition of galaxies. So far, galaxy mergers have mostly been identified through visual inspection of their rest-frame optical and NIR…