My Work
My work involves detailed analysis of Chandra and XMM observations of high redshift clusters of galaxies to measure their properties accurately, and determine the cluster X-ray temperature function at high redshifts. This will provide a powerful probe of cosmological models. This work was undertaken with the assistance of the Birmingham Extragalactic Group, specifically Laurence Jones, and with the collaboration of the WARPS group, including Harald Ebeling, Caleb Scharf, and Eric Perlman.
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for a list of my publications and here for a bibliography of papers relevent to my research and cited in my work.
Galaxy Cluster J1226.9+3332
Cluster J1226, at a redshift of 0.888 is a fascinating system, and is the most distant X-ray luminous, massive cluster known. Discovered in archived ROSAT pointed observations by the WARPS survey, this cluster has been the subject of multi-wavelength follow up observations, including a 30ks observation with XMM-Newton.
![[CLJ1226]](j1226overlay_BBsmall.jpg)
The image above shows contours of the X-ray emission detected by the three EPIC cameras aboard XMM, overlayed on a Subaru I-band image. With a gas temperature of 11.5 keV, this system is the hottest known at redshifts higher than 0.6, and it also appears relaxed.
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Galaxy Cluster J0152.7-1357
In stark contrast to relaxed CLJ1226 is the massive merging cluster CLJ0152, at z=0.833. This system consists of two main subclusters with temperatures of around 5.5 keV, and when merged, the resultant cluster will have a mass comparible to that of the Coma cluster.
![[CLJ0152]](j0152overlay_BBsmall.jpg)
The image above shows contours of the X-ray emission detected by Chandra, overlayed on a Keck I-band image. There are many interesting features associated with this system, including a possible shock front in the gas between the subclusters (discussed in Maughan B. J., Jones L. R., et al (2003), and several galaxy groups in-falling along X-ray filaments, which are visible in a deep XMM observation (to be discussed in a future paper). Here we are observing massive cluster formation in action!
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Last modified: Sat Mar 29 11:37:51 GMT 2008