Spectroscopic confirmation of the galaxy clusters CARLA J0950+2743 at z=2.363, and CARLA-Ser J0950+2743 at z=2.243

TL;DR

This paper confirms two high-redshift galaxy clusters through spectroscopy, analyzes their X-ray emission suggesting the presence of hot intra-cluster medium, and estimates their masses, contributing to understanding structure formation in the early universe.

Contribution

First spectroscopic confirmation of two z>2 galaxy clusters, with analysis of their X-ray emission and mass estimation, expanding the limited sample of such distant clusters.

Findings

Confirmed two galaxy clusters at z=2.363 and z=2.243.

Detected extended X-ray emission possibly from intra-cluster medium.

Estimated cluster masses around 3.3 x 10^{14} solar masses.

Abstract

Galaxy clusters, being the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe, are a powerful tool to study mass assembly at different epochs. At z$>$2 they give an unique opportunity to put solid constraints not only on dark matter halo growth, but also on the mechanisms of galaxy quenching and morphological transformation when the Universe was younger than 3.3 Gyr. However, the currently available sample of confirmed $z>2$ clusters remains very limited. We present the spectroscopic confirmation of the galaxy cluster CARLA J0950+2743 at $z=2.363\pm0.005$ and a new serendipitously discovered cluster, CARLA-Ser J0950+2743 at $z=2.243\pm0.008$ in the same region. We confirm eight star-forming galaxies in the first cluster, and five in the second by detecting [OII], [OIII] and $H\alpha$ emission lines. The analysis of a serendipitous X-ray observation of this field from Chandra reveals a counterpart with a total luminosity of $L_{0.5-5 keV} = 2.9\pm0.6\times10^{45}$ erg s$^{-1}$. Given the limited depth of the X-ray observations, we cannot distinguish the 1-D profile of the source from a PSF model, however, our statistical analysis of the 2-D profile favors an extended component that could be associated to a thermal contribution from the intra-cluster medium (ICM). If the extended X-ray emission is due to the hot ICM, the total dark matter mass for the two clusters would be $M_{200}=3.30 ^{+0.23}_{-0.26 (\mathrm{stat})}$ $^{+1.28}_{-0.96 (\mathrm{sys})} \times10^{14} M_{\odot}$. This makes our two clusters interesting targets for studies of the structure growth in the cosmological context. However, future investigations would require deeper high-resolution X-ray and spectroscopic observations.