The Wendelstein Weak Lensing (WWL) pathfinder: Accurate weak lensing masses for Planck clusters

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that accurate weak lensing mass measurements of galaxy clusters are feasible using the 2m Fraunhofer Telescope, with careful bias analysis and calibration, providing valuable data for SZ-selected clusters.

Contribution

First weak lensing mass estimates for two Planck SZ clusters using the Fraunhofer Telescope, with bias assessment and comparison to other mass estimates.

Findings

Calibration uncertainty below 8.1-15% for redshifts 0.27-0.77

Redshift correction for PSZ1 G109.88+27.94 to z ≈ 0.77

Weak lensing masses consistent with SZ and dynamical estimates

Abstract

We present results from the Wendelstein Weak Lensing (WWL) pathfinder project, in which we have observed three intermediate redshift Planck clusters of galaxies with the new 30'$\times 30$' wide field imager at the 2m Fraunhofer Telescope at Wendelstein Observatory. We investigate the presence of biases in our shear catalogues and estimate their impact on our weak lensing mass estimates. The overall calibration uncertainty depends on the cluster redshift and is below 8.1-15 per cent for $z \approx 0.27-0.77$. It will decrease with improvements on the background sample selection and the multiplicative shear bias calibration. We present the first weak lensing mass estimates for PSZ1 G109.88+27.94 and PSZ1 G139.61+24.20, two SZ-selected cluster candidates. Based on Wendelstein colors and SDSS photometry, we find that the redshift of PSZ1 G109.88+27.94 has to be corrected to $z \approx 0.77$. We investigate the influence of line-of-sight structures on the weak lensing mass estimates and find upper limits for two groups in each of the fields of PSZ1 G109.88+27.94 and PSZ1 G186.98+38.66. We compare our results to SZ and dynamical mass estimates from the literature, and in the case of PSZ1 G186.98+38.66 to previous weak lensing mass estimates. We conclude that our pathfinder project demonstrates that weak lensing cluster masses can be accurately measured with the 2m Fraunhofer Telescope.