A New Method for the Detection of Galaxy Clusters in X-Ray Surveys

For many years the power of counting clusters of galaxies as a function of their mass has been recognized as a powerful cosmological probe; however, we are only now beginning to acquire data from dedicated surveys with sufcient sky coverage and sensitivity to measure the cluster population out to distances where the dark energy came to dominate the Universe’s evolution. One such survey uses the XMM X-ray telescope to scan a large area of sky, detecting the X-ray photons from the hot plasma that lies in the deep potential wells of massive clusters of galaxies. These clusters appear as extended (not point-like) objects, each providing just a few hundred photons in a typical observation. The detection of extended sources in such a low signal-to-noise situation is an important problem in astrophysics: we attempt to solve it by using as much prior information as possible, translating our experience with wellmeasured clusters to define a “template” cluster that can be varied and matched to the features seen in the XMM images. In this work we adapt an existing Monte Carlo analysis code for this problem. Two detection templates were dened and their suitability explored using simulated data; the method was then applied to a publically avalable XMM observation of a “blank” field. Presented are the encouraging results of this series of experiments, suggesting that this approach continue to be developed for future cluster-identication endeavours