Institution
- Name: Prof. Dr. Jochen Weller, Universe Cluster, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet
- Address: Boltzmannstrasse 2, 85748 Garching bei Muenchen
- Project Proposal Date: 2009-04-20
Abstract:
This project seeks to develop, test, and implement a new method to constrain 3D non-spherical, triaxial models of galaxy clusters, using simultaneously constraints from X-ray observations and gravitational lensing measurements. This represents brand new work in the field, and the complementarity of the two data types is expected to provide field-leading constraints on the distribution of dark matter in the galaxy clusters. These measurements are crucial to testing the accuracy of the predictions of the cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm, as well as for future work using galaxy clusters to study cosmology. The method uses a Bayesian framework to explore the full 8-12 dimensional parameter space of the mass models to obtain constraints on the shape, mass, temperature, and concentration of galaxy clusters, and as such is very computationally intensive. It is in the early development stages and requires statistical testing involving tens if not not hundreds of test cases to be run. When this testing is complete, the method will then be applied to large galaxy cluster surveys, providing a new statistically and theoretically robust test of CDM.