Sunyaev‐Zeldovich Effect Imaging of MACS Galaxy Clusters at z > 0.5

Abstract

We present 30 GHz interferometric Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE) measurements of a redshift-limited, X-ray-selected cluster sample from the Massive Cluster Survey (MACS). All eight of the high-redshift (z > 0.5, δ > - 15°) galaxy clusters were detected. Additional observations were made at 4.8 GHz with the Very Large Array to help constrain the amount of point source contamination to the SZE decrements. From SZE data alone, we derive electron temperatures in the range 5.5-18.5 keV and total masses between 1.5 and 2.6 × 1014 h-1 M⊙ within a 65″ radius (0.28 h-1 Mpc at z = 0.5) for the eight clusters. Six of the clusters are MACS discoveries, while two (Cl 0016+1609 and MS 0451.6-0305) were detected by previous X-ray observations and have been recently observed with the Chandra observatory. The X-ray-derived temperatures and masses for Cl 0016+1609 and MS 0451.6-0305 are in good agreement with the SZE derived values. Strong detections of the SZE signal in this sample of MACS objects confirm that they are hot, massive clusters.