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R. B. Partridge, J. M. Eppley (Haverford College), E. J. Spillar (Univ. of Wyoming)
Two groups (see Jones, et al., ApJ 479, L1 [1997]; Richards, et al., AJ 113, 1475 [1997]) have reported the detection at cm wavelengths of extended decrements in the cosmic microwave background that may be Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (S-Z) signals from high redshift clusters of galaxies. If the existence of relaxed clusters at z = 2-3 is confirmed, it would present severe difficulties for CDM models of structure formation. Attempts (Saunders et al., ApJ 479, L5 [1997]; Richards, et al., 1997) to detect the clusters in the optical or X-ray bands have been unsuccessful. One of the possible clusters may be at z = 2.56, as indicated by the presence of several discrete sources at that redshift. If so, the peak of galactic emission would be at 2 microns. Hence we have used the WIRO and IRTF telescopes at K' band to search for continuum emission from galaxies in the possible z = 2.56 cluster. We will report on sources detected down to our limit of 21 mag in K'.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: bpartrid@haverford.edu