The ARCRAIDER project: A unique sample of X-ray bright, massive gravitational lensing galaxy clusters

Abstract

We present a sample of the 22 most X-ray luminous galaxy clusters based on the ROSAT Bright Survey [15]. As all clusters are medium redshift systems (0.1≤ z ≤0.52) their lensing probability is very high. We found gravitational arc candidates in ∼70% of the clusters. In particular we focus on a combined lensing/X-ray analysis of one of the sample clusters, Z3146, based on deep ground based wide-field (WFI@ESO2.2m, B, V and R band), archival WFPC2@HST (F606W) and XMM/Newton observations. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.