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Session 37 - Clusters of Galaxies - X-Rays.
Display session, Tuesday, January 14
Metropolitan Ballroom,
WARPS (Wide Angle ROSAT Pointed Survey) is an ongoing search for serendipitously detected sources in archival ROSAT PSPC observations. WARPS employs the VTP (Voronoi Tessellation and Percolation) source detection method which is particularly well suited to detecting and quantifying low surface brightness extended emission. An extensive optical follow-up program has obtained R-band images and redshifts for clusters of galaxies in the WARPS sample, and we have compiled an x-ray flux limited, statistically complete sample of galaxy clusters with redshifts from \sim 0.1 to \sim 0.7. This sample encompasses low luminosity groups to bright Abell-type clusters along with many poor clusters which border on the Abell selection criteria but are not as optically rich. Poor clusters such as these have not been well studied since they are difficult to identify optically against the background field of galaxies. We will present initial results of analysis of the imaging data to obtain optical richnesses, luminosities, and morphologies of WARPS clusters. We will then examine correlations among the optical and x-ray properties (e.g.\ luminosity and temperature) over a wide range of cluster redshifts and richnesses to attempt to further understanding of galaxy clusters.
