Searching for Dust in the Intracluster Medium from Reddening of Background Galaxies

S. Muller, S.‐Y. Wu, B.‐C. Hsieh, R. A. González, L. Loinard, H. K. C. Yee, M. D. Gladders
2008 Astrophysical Journal  
We report a search for the presence of dust in the intra-cluster medium based on the study of statistical reddening of background galaxies. Armed with the Red Sequence Cluster survey data, from which we extracted (i) a catalog of 458 clusters with z_clust < 0.5 and (ii) a catalog of ~90,000 galaxies with photometric redshift 0.5 < z_ph < 0.8 and photometric redshift uncertainty delta z_ph / (1+z_ph) < 0.06, we have constructed several samples of galaxies according to their projected distances
more » ... the cluster centers. No significant color differences [ = 0.005 pm 0.008, and = 0.000 pm 0.008] were found for galaxies background to the clusters, compared to the references. Assuming a Galactic extinction law, we derive an average visual extinction of = 0.004 pm 0.010 towards the inner 1x R_200 of clusters.
doi:10.1086/529583 fatcat:ieuwrh3i2rbipm42ncnedloara