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College of Mathematical & Physical Sciences
Department of Astronomy Colloquium Series 2006/7

Friday, November 17, 12:30 p.m.
2015 McPherson Laboratory

The Evolution of Large-Scale Structure: Clusters and Groups of Galaxies

Tesla Jeltema
Carnegie Observatories

Large-scale structure has long been known to encode basic information about our universe. It is increasingly becoming apparent that environment and the evolution of environment play a key role in the properties of structure on all scales. I will discuss the evolution of structure on two scales: massive clusters of galaxies and the more common groups of galaxies. First, I will describe a study of the frequency of cluster mergers versus time by quantifying the amount of substructure in clusters versus redshift. We find that, as expected qualitatively in hierarchical models of structure formation, the amount of substructure in clusters increases with redshift. This systematic trend of cluster dynamical state with time has important implications for cosmological studies with clusters. Second, I will discuss a multiwavelength study of intermediate-redshift groups of galaxies. Groups are the most common environment for galaxies in the universe making them important sites for studies of galaxy evolution. Groups are also important to the understanding of the non-gravitational processes which may affect the intercluster medium. However, their low galaxy densities and faint X-ray emission make groups difficult to recognize at even moderate redshifts, and studies of representative samples of groups at z>0.1 are just beginning.
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Modified 2006 Nov 13 [rwp]