WINGS-SPE Spectroscopy in the WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive spectroscopic survey of 48 galaxy clusters from the WINGS project, measuring redshifts for over 6000 galaxies to study cluster dynamics, galaxy evolution, and X-ray relations.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale spectroscopic dataset for WINGS clusters, significantly increasing known member galaxies and analyzing their dynamics and X-ray properties.

Findings

Redshifts for 6137 galaxies measured with ~45 km/s accuracy.

Nearly tripled the number of known member galaxies per cluster.

Confirmed the Lx proportional to sigma^4 relation in galaxy clusters.

Abstract

Aims. We present the results from a comprehensive spectroscopic survey of the WINGS (WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey) clusters, a program called WINGS-SPE. The WINGS-SPE sample consists of 48 clusters, 22 of which are in the southern sky and 26 in the north. The main goals of this spectroscopic survey are: (1) to study the dynamics and kinematics of the WINGS clusters and their constituent galaxies, (2) to explore the link between the spectral properties and the morphological evolution in different density environments and across a wide range in cluster X-ray luminosities and optical properties. Methods. Using multi object fiber fed spectrographs, we observed our sample of WINGS cluster galaxies at an intermediate resolu- tion of 6-9 A and, using a cross-correlation technique, we measured redshifts with a mean accuracy of about 45 km/s. Results. We present redshift measurements for 6137 galaxies and their first analyses. Details of the spectroscopic observations are reported. The WINGS-SPE has about 30% overlap with previously published data sets, allowing us to do both a complete comparison with the literature and to extend the catalogs. Conclusions. Using our redshifts, we calculate the velocity dispersion for all the clusters in the WINGS-SPE sample. We almost trip- licate the number of member galaxies known in each cluster with respect to previous works. We also investigate the X-ray luminosity vs. velocity dispersion relation for our WINGS-SPE clusters, and find it to be consistent with the form Lx proportional to sigma^4.