Statistical issues in galaxy cluster cosmology

Abstract

The number and growth of massive galaxy clusters is a sensitive probe of cosmological structure formation and dark energy. Surveys at various wavelengths can detect clusters to high redshift, but the fact that cluster mass is not directly observable complicates matters, requiring us to simultaneously constrain scaling relations of observable signals with mass. The problem can be cast in the form of a regression, in which the data set is truncated, the (cosmology-dependent) underlying population must be modeled, and strong, complex correlations between measurements often exist. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013.