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Session 21 - Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies.
Oral session, Monday, June 10
Humanities 3650,
The SHARC (Serendipitous High--redshift Archival ROSAT Cluster) Survey is the largest ongoing search for distant clusters in the ROSAT archive. We expect to find 50 to 80 z>0.3 clusters across the sky. These clusters will be used to probe cluster evolution and to constrain models of large scale structure formation. They will also make ideal targets for AXAF follow-up, the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect and gravitational lensing studies. To date, we have processed more than 300 deep (T_exp>10ks) PSPC pointings, detected more than 2000 discrete X-ray sources and made optical follow-ups of nearly 200 distant cluster candidates. We will report on our imaging program in the north and our spectroscopic program in the south and present results from the \simeq20 confirmed z>0.3 clusters so far in our sample. We will present our re-evaluation (which is consistent with no evolution) of the EMSS cluster luminosity function using new data on 31 of the 67 \,\,z>0.14 EMSS clusters. Finally, we will describe our plans to extend the SHARC survey to include lower exposure PSPC pointings and the HRI archive.
